I saw a recent news report about a primary schoolgirl who responded to a supposed maths question. (It's actually old news regurgitated in the Mirror as it was reported in the Mirror in December last year). They were supposed to show how their answers had been reached.

The question was "Jane has 12 crayons and Kim has 7. How many more crayons does Susan have than Kim?" Her answer was "Who is Susan?"

There were two other questionable questions.

1/There are 8 birds on a branch and 3 birds on another branch. How many birds are in the tree?

2/ There are 8 fish in the pond. 7 fish swam away. How many are left in the pond?

Now are they trick questions or has the person who set the questions left their brain someplace else?

As for 1/, were the branches in the same tree or should the answer be 8 + 3 = 11?

Moving on to 2/, if the fish were in a pond, they couldn't leave the pond so all the fish were still in the pond or should the answer be 8 - 7 = 1?

In the past year or two, I've seen several similar news stories about questionable questions. Some were definitely trick questions but others had been set without giving proper thought.

It seems to me that some supposedly intelligent types fit the description that my father had of some people "His head's bulging with brains but he's not got an ounce of common sense".