This Chinese Math Problem Has No Answer. Perhaps, It Has a Lot of Them. (washingtonpost.com)

Fifth-graders in China's Shunqing district were recently asked to answer this question: "If a ship had 26 sheep and 10 goats on board, how old is the ship's captain?" The Washington Post: The apparently unsolvable question sparked a debate over the merits of the Chinese education system and the value it places on the memorization of information over the importance of developing critical thinking skills. "Some surveys show that primary school students in our country lack a sense of critical awareness in regard to mathematics," a statement by the Shunqing Education Department posted Jan. 26 reportedly said. One student offered a pragmatic law-abiding answer: "The captain is at least 18 because he has to be an adult to drive the ship." Meanwhile on Twitter, some have gone with 42, a reference to the science fiction novel "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," by Douglas Adams, in which 42 is the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything." BBC: "If a school had 26 teachers, 10 of which weren't thinking, how old is the principal?" another asked. Some however, defended the school -- which has not been named -- saying the question promoted critical thinking. "The whole point of it is to make the students think. It's done that," one person commented. "This question forces children to explain their thinking and gives them space to be creative. We should have more questions like this," another said.

Comments

This question first appeared in 1841...

[DrTJ]

... and is known as the 'age of the captain' problem, introduced by Gustave Flaubert, a french writer.

It's been used to study how children in elementary school react to word problems. It has notthing to do with maths.

See e.g. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3...

Re:There is always an answer

[Enigma2175]

Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers or viewers as a sincere expression of the parodied views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How was this question graded?

[angel'o'sphere]

Both happens in Germany.

Correct answer but not showing the way of calculation: only half the points. (Depending on school even 0 points)
Wrong answer, but correct calculation with some mistakes: 75% of the points.

Knowing HOW to do it is much more important than knowing the WHAT is the answer.

"That is just punishing smart kids by forcing them to do it "the stupid way". No it is not.
Every medical operation follows a standard, there is no "short cut".

The only "show me your work" where I agree is unnecessary is adding up some numbers.
But even then you can write:
      sum of those is 120. s = 120.

And in further calculation write:
      s * s is 14400

And so on.

Just writing 1,600,123 as result is as dumb and showing no sign of smartness as writing down a wrong way of calculating it.