I’ve long been of a mind that Americans should be required to pass a test before they can vote. I always imagined that such a test would reveal the prospective voter’s basic understanding of the issues that face the country and how various candidates propose to deal with them.
I still believe such a test might be useful, but now I think it should take the form of a single math problem that is currently vexing adults on the internet. According to The Sun, the problem, reproduced below, was written for 6-year-olds in the UK.
Having worked in educational publishing in a previous life, I can tell you that problems that involve solving for variables aren’t taught as early as first grade in the U.S. But there is no reason why any adult shouldn’t be able to solve the equation.
