You may have seen a few of these fun little puzzles doing the rounds on social media: simple brain exercises replacing numbers with fruit, effectively tricking us into enjoying the algebra we hated at school. They’re simple, but surprisingly hard to resist!
This puzzle, however, is getting a surprising amount of controversy, as it has two very different answers. Some say it’s straightforward; other say it’s a surprisingly sneaky trick. Give it a try below, and read on to find out why it’s so divisive…
Answer(s):
This puzzle may not be quite as simple as it appears.
If you take all apples symbols to mean ten, all coconut symbols to mean four, and all banana symbols to equal two, the answer is a straightforward 16.
However, others keenly spotted that that one bunch of bananas is different to the others; if the bunches of four bananas equals four, then the bunch of three bananas should equal three.
Likewise, the coconut symbols are different: one showing two coconut halves, the other showing one.
With this logic, the answer is 14.
Did you have any trouble solving this? Which answer do you think was intentional?
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