Maths homework question about apples meant for 6-year-olds stumps adults

A parent whose child came home with a maths homework question about apples was absolutely stumped - and it turns out other parents were too - but can you solve it?

When you become a parent, one thing that is inevitable is that your child is going to come home with some homework one day, and probably ask for your help. No matter how long ago school was, you might find yourself a bit rusty.

And it turns out even those who thought they were good at maths struggled with this maths homework question, which was actually designed for six-year-olds. You'd think it would be a walk in the park for adults, but with the school years many years behind us, it's not as easy as you'd think. One parent was so confused about their kid's homework they took to an online forum to ask for help in how to solve it. On the homework activity page, it said: "Danny had dropped paint on his book." Under the words was a picture of a splatter of paint with the word "most" written beside it.

Under that, there were 16 apples arranged in two rows of eight with the word "least" written next to it. The question was: "How many apples could be covered by the paint? There cannot be more than 20." Thousands of adults were completely stumped by the question, with some people claiming there must have been another part to this riddle, which wasn't covered by the camera angle of the person who posted the Reddit thread. However, others claimed to understand it.

One person wrote: "0 apples as Danny dropped the paint on his book and not an apple. I feel like it's a weird sphinx riddle...." Another added: "I think the answer they're looking for is 'most: 4, least: 0'. For those who were baffled like me: The paint is meant to be potentially covering apples. There are 16 shown, and there can't be more than 20. So between 0 and 4 could be (currently) covered by the paint."

One person suggested: "I think the idea is to go off the 'most' and 'least' labels. For the 16 to be labeled as least, it would have to have less than the other group. Basically i think they just want a number between 17 and 20." Another agreed, commenting: "This is the most obviously correct answer. I think people are considering the splash to be to scale. If 16 is the least and there can't be any more than. 20, then the 'most' category has in between 17-19 apples."

Do you think you know the answer? Let us know in the comment section below.