As a child, one of the most exciting things about growing up is the prospect of never having to do homework again.
Tediously-boring tasks set by teachers to be carried out at the end of an already very long and tiresome day at school, homework truly was something to be dreaded.
And one UK mum has this week been plunged into one of her childhood nightmares after her daughter brought to her a puzzling new homework task that she was unable to get her head around.
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It turns out, however, that this is no ordinary homework task.
In fact, the poor mother struggled so much to answer this particular - seemingly impossible - literacy-based question that she ended up imploring with her followers on social media for help.
Laura Rathbone, 40, was presented with the dumbfounding conundrum by her six-year-old daughter Lilly-Mo, but not even the Internet could help her.
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Taking to Facebook to share the question that left her baffled - which asks the child to pick the "odd one out" between the words 'friend, 'desk', 'toothbrush', 'egg' and 'silver' - Laura asked for a helping hand.
The Buckinghamshire mum went on: "At first I thought I was losing my mind. I was like, 'What am I missing here?' So I posted in a group with loads of moms hoping they would have the answer."
But the English task left all her followers just as conflicted, with hundreds of comments appearing, with people guessing the right answer.
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"I would say toothbrush as it’s the only one with 2 syllables?", one follower wrote, evidently forgetting that 'silver' also has two syllables.
Another suggested: "You can only eat an egg…"
"Toothbrush is the only word without an E," a third guessed.
Another went on to suggest: "Friend because it’s the only word that can not be phonetically sounded out. All others you can.
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"Given its phonic homework that is what I would say it is checking."
A fifth guessed: "Silver. The others are nouns," while another assumed, "Friend because it’s a person and not an object," which is personally the one I would have gone for, too."
Another of Laura's followers went on: "As a teacher myself I actually think this is an interesting piece of homework. I would imagine designed to encourage thought, reasoning and probably discussion at home."
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It turns out, however, that there is a correct answer to this head-spinning question, which Laura was forced to ask her daughter's teacher for help on.
It's actually the word 'silver' that is the odd one out, being that the children had been learning about nouns at the time.
But she went on to point out at the conundrum is more complicated still, being that 'silver' can be both an adjective and a noun...
Topics: Parenting
Rhianna Benson