Maths question given to a 7-year-old Bristol schoolboy is baffling the internet

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Bristol Post:

This maths question given to a 7-year-old Bristol schoolboy is baffling the internet...

As children across the country prepare to sit the SAT exams this week, one Bristol mother has shared a maths problem her seven-year-old son was asked to solve ^ and it's baffling the internet.

Louise Bloxham, from Bristol, tweeted the question from the son's homework, and parents were stumped by how difficult it was.

The question was looking at the number of adults remaining on a train after a number of them had gotten on and off ^ sounds simple enough right?

It reads: ^There were some people on a train. 19 people get off the train at the first stop. 17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train. How many people were on the train to begin with?"

And the answers coming in were pretty varied.

The most popular answer - and the one that seems most logical - is 65.

If there two less people got on the train than got off at the first stop, there were two more to begin with. 63 + 2 is 65. Right?

Apparently not.

According to the mark scheme, the answer is in fact 46.

[JayMac]

It's 65. 63+(19-17)

There's no source for this 'mark scheme' total of 46 except Ms Bloxham's own tweet.

[Chris from Nailsea]

I know.  That's why I found it surprising that so many of those 'commenting' on that Bristol Post article came up with a different answer.  After all, it's simply a head count of passengers on a train, isn't it? 

[LiskeardRich]

The woman saying 46 says that as 19 got off at the first station, they weren't on to begin with. I still say they were on the train to begin with, or how would they have been on board, if they got off at the first station where did they get on?
I go with 65.

[grahame]

I know this one as I used it yesterday. There were none on the train to begin with as it had been parked in the terminal bay at Swindon for a staff break.  But I think the question's wrong because after the first stop at Chippenham there were quite a number standing, and virtually every seat was taken ...

[paul7575]

If I read the question in this way though:   "How many of these 63 on the train now were on the train to begin with?"

Paul

[stuving]

Or then again, maybe someone misread the marking sheet - this has just been posted as the relevant bit of it: http://s32.postimg.org/as8ouk9p1/answer.jpg


Or, of course, the whole story could just be complete nonsense.

[Western Pathfinder]

I have Allways thought that it might be handy if English was the first language of the people that are employed to set these exam papers ?.