Here are some of the hardest questions 3rd-graders had to answer on New York's statewide math test

The New York State Education Department released a sampling of questions from statewide math and reading tests this week, showing the kind of problems elementary- and middle-school students have to grapple with.

As The New York Times notes, New York is generally considered to have some of the hardest tests in the country. Only 36% of students passed the math exams in 2014, and reading exam scores that year were even lower.

Along with some of the questions that appeared on each test, NYSED also included the percentage of students statewide who answered the question correctly. Scores of individual schools will be released later this week.

Below, we've pulled out a few problems that more than half of third-grade students got wrong:

The correct answer is D. 43% of third-grade students answered correctly.

The correct answer is C. 33% of third-grade students answered correctly.

The correct answer is D. 48% of third-grade students answered correctly.

Students also had to complete short answer math questions, which were graded out of two or three points.

The correct answer is 40 square feet. Students scored on average .88 out of two possible points.