Back in 2003, a social media user, @yawdmontweet from Jamaica had shared a math question for children, where the user shared their thought as, “What is the closest time to midnight?”
Jah know start diss a hurt mi head pic.twitter.com/ptYFtS9DSx
— Minister of Foolishness 🇯🇲 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@yawdmontweet) June 21, 2023
The question viewed by people more than 1.4 million. Almost everyone under the comments section were confused, and shared their own thoughts. Eventually, people shared that the correct answer of the question was option D.
I saw this and asked my co-workers. They all got it wrong. A is my answer. Time doesn't move in reverse. There is just one midnight in a day.
— truthspeaker (@Anthony75270337) June 22, 2023
Social media user shared that to find the correct answer, people should look for “closest time to,” not “closest time until.”
The way the question was prepared, made people use their creative sides instead of only letting people find the answer through their logic. The option A was a trap for people who were using only their logic.
The social media users even tried to solve the question through the help of artificial intelligence of ChatGPT. As one user shared, the AI answered the question as: “The closest time to midnight would be D. 12:03 a.m.”
If you mean closest time to when it *will* be midnight next, the answer is A. In that context, it wouldn’t be midnight again with D for nearly 24 hrs.
If you just mean raw minutes forward or back, the answer is D.
Trick questions like these only make kids hate math. https://t.co/IOJa6JFwpS
— Oliver Jia (オリバー・ジア) (@OliverJia1014) June 25, 2023
Some other people suggested that there were two correct asnwers as: “If you mean closest time to when it *will* be midnight next, the answer is A. In that context, it wouldn’t be midnight again with D for nearly 24 hrs. If you just mean raw minutes forward or back, the answer is D. Trick questions like these only make kids hate math.”
What do you think? Let us know.