This kids’ homework ‘pattern’ is not the obvious one and it’s melting people’s brains

There’s a whole genre of posts devoted to infuriating kids’ homework, where the answer either isn’t the obvious one or it’s so obscure you’d have to be a university professor (or similar) to spot it.

And this is a classic of its type, which has just gone viral after it was shared by Redditor JimiNightshade who said: ‘Kids homework, teacher says the pattern isn’t counting by 1s.’

And it prompted no end of responses, a mixture of fury and suggestions about the correct answer. We’re not sure we’re any closer to understanding, hopefully you’ll have more luck.

‘I hate stuff like this. All it does is confuse students and probably the teacher doesn’t even know what it is. Just useless all the way around.’
AdFrosty9775

‘Guaranteed the teacher only knows what it is because she has the answer book.’
JimiNightshade

‘#1 has blue second digits, and #3 has bolding. Those have to be significant, but I can’t make them a pattern.’
south3y

‘Right the 1st one is literally highlighting the 2nd number showing them going up by 1 digit, the 3rd one I have no clue why those two are bold, but the teacher said the pattern is the numbers just not increasing by 1 digit & that all 3 questions have no correlation to each other.’
JimiNightshade

‘I think I found where the teacher “adapted it” from. And the answer is pretty dumb. They’re basically trying to teach kids that the ten digit rolls over when the single digit changes from 9 to 0 as you count. Look at page 3 (Lesson 2-1).

‘So if I interpret this right, the answers are: Q1. The ten digit stays the same while the single digit goes up by 1 within the ten range, all the way from 0-9.

‘Q2/3. The ten digit changes by 1 when the single digit changes from 9 to 0.’
uspezdiddleskids

‘Maths teacher here. Came here to say this, but also that it is dumb!’
porste

‘Good God I have a mechanical engineering degree and if this is the way we are teaching kids, then there is no hope for humanity. Give up now, we’re doomed!’
RNEngHyp

‘The pattern is that all 3 questions are f-cking stupid.’
el_gregorio

‘Holy shit I see it now.’
Alone_Abroad_9032

To conclude …

‘Kid should have replied, “That’s how it works in Base 10, but not Hexadecimal where the radix is 16” and really blow the teacher’s mind.’
dalysea

Source Reddit u/JimiNightshade