Do you think you’ll be the one to solve this?
Most people get it wrong
At the same time, even the most basic math can be forgotten when you don’t practice. With that in mind, we could leave the regular puzzles aside for a second to try to refresh the basic skills you learned back in school.
For this problem, it’s essential to remember the order of operations while having a good eye for detail. It’s not an easy task – and according to most sites online, most people get it wrong on their first try.
Can you figure out the solution?
Time to use that head of yours.
Yeah, it’s not that simple, but as I said, not even 50% get it right at first.
Can you solve the math test?
A
B
C
ANSWER:
The answer is 21.
One tricky part about the problem is the third equation has 2 horseshoes and 2 boots but the fourth line only has 1 horseshoe and 1 boot.
Now let’s solve for the value of each item. From the first equation, we can solve that the horse equals 10.
From the second we can then solve that each horseshoe is equal to 2.
Then from the third, we can solve that the value of a boot is equal to 1.
We then need to evaluate the value of the boot plus (horse × horseshoe). This is 1 + 10 × 2 = 1 + 20 = 21.
(The 10 × 2 is evaluated first by the order of operations because multiplication takes precedence over addition).
Therefore the correct answer is 21.
Did you get either of these answers the first time you tried it?
