I was helping some friends who are Japanese but whose English is good.

We were going over the oldest's grade two math homework to make sure he got it right. Simple? Even I, whose native tongue is English was a little unsure what the homework was fishing for. I can only hope we got the right answer.

I think they have made the homework to complex by asking the kids to over think it too much. They should just memorize in the early grades and then de-construct it in the older grades.