A simple spelling assignment has once again baffled internet users, with a puzzling image proving that some homework questions are nearly impossible to solve.
A viral post on Threads asks for help identifying the word that corresponds to the letter ‘M,’ sparking a wave of humorous and uniquely insightful responses. Since the post was made, it has received almost 2 million views, over 9,200 likes and more than 6,800 replies.
The post, which features a picture of a child’s worksheet, asks a question that seems straightforward at first glance: “Help me out here. I understand that L is for leaf, N is for net, O is for Ox … What is M?”
The picture next to the letter ‘M’ is a grid of four squares, each with a dot in the middle. This seemingly simple spelling assignment quickly had internet users scratching their heads.
Commenters offered a range of guesses, from the plausible to the comical. One user suggested, “Mahjong,” while another’s mind went to snack foods: “All I could think of was ‘Mmcheez-its.'”
A user, whose 10-year-old guessed a possible word, was impressed by their child’s answer: “My 10-year-old says it’s ‘multiple’. I don’t think that’s right, but I was still impressed,” they wrote.
An Unlikely Answer
The mystery was finally solved by a teacher who found the entire situation comical. “As a teacher, this is hilarious,” the user wrote. “The answer is ‘many’ or ‘multiple.’ You’re welcome. [From], 5th grade [English Language Arts] teacher.”
The answer, which refers to the multiple dots in the squares, was a testament to how complex some basic assignments can be.
But some users had a frustrated response to the revelation: “Explain to me how we’ve got ‘leaf’ and ‘ox’ (easy enough to figure out) and you’re telling me M is for ‘many’ or ‘multiple?'” one wrote. “If that’s the case, M is clearly for ‘mind games,’ because I’m not buying it.”
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This is far from the first time a confusing piece of first-grade homework has gone viral. In a similar story previously reported by Newsweek, an Alabama dad turned to Reddit for homework help after his son’s English assignment contained sentences that were impossible to solve.
The worksheets, meant to have simple words such as “hiss” and “mess,” contained baffling questions such as, “What’s the [blank] of the pen?” and “Our [blank] has white stars.”
The dad, who told Newsweek he “didn’t want to be ‘that parent’ that tries to know more than the teacher but is actually wrong,” assumed the answers weren’t in the provided word bank. The conclusion reached by him and the online community was that the baffling questions were the result of a copying-and-pasting error on the worksheet.
These stories serve as a reminder that the most-baffling homework questions often have the simplest—and sometimes most-frustrating—explanation.
Newsweek reached out to @rogeradobson1 for comment via Instagram.
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