President Donald Trump justified his plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education in part this week by singling out Baltimore high school students’ performance on a statewide algebra test.

Students across Maryland underperformed on the test, too — just 17% passed in 2023 — but their scores were even worse in eighth-grade math last year. And despite Trump’s comments, neither test is just “adding a few numbers together.”

The Banner gave readers the opportunity to answer five sample questions from the eighth-grade test last fall, and a majority of subscribers probably would have failed the actual test.

Of the 857 Banner subscribers who took our five-question quiz, 53% got two or fewer questions right on their first attempt. Just 14% got all five questions right.

The Banner’s staff did even worse. Of the 25 of us who took it, 72% got two or fewer right. (Journalists often say we’re not math people.)

Question 2 proved the hardest, asking users to find incorrect values for a linear equation. Just 39% of Banner subscribers got it right on their first try.

Question 5 was the easiest. It was a word problem that asked what the solution to a hypothetical equation would represent. It was also, coincidentally, the only question with a correct answer that was not a number.

There’s a lot more to low math scores than just students (and the rest of us) underperforming. Some students take advanced math classes in middle school, skewing results for high schools. And some of the high schools Trump singled out are alternative schools designed to help struggling or special needs students.

Not convinced? Try our sample questions for yourself.

Baltimore-area schools actually improved their test scores last year. Statewide, results were more of a mixed bag. Want to see how students did at a school near you? Look up the scores for math, English and science in our database of school test scores.