Tricky maths puzzle has people 'in tears' but the solution is actually simple

This maths brainteaser might just make you weep.

Maths can be one of the most frustrating subjects for many students. While some people seem to natural excel in the subject, others really battle to grasp topics like algebra and geometry.

Nevertheless, it can have some crucial real-world applications - such as calculating a percentage discount when you go shopping or knowing how to divide something into equal portions.

Practising various maths puzzles can also help to enhance your cognitive function and sharpen your problem-solving abilities. They can even help keep diseases like dementia at bay as they strengthen the connections between your brain cells.

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If you're seeking a way to challenge your maths abilities, then this tricky exam question could be the ideal method to do it. But be cautioned, because the brainteaser did leave one girl so exasperated she burst into tears because she couldn't crack it.

A video posted on TikTok by The Math Tutor first showed a clip of an American teenager reading out a question from a maths exam. She was already in tears when the video began and declared, "I hate word problems", as she read out the complex question, which was presented like a riddle rather than a straightforward equation.

The question was this: "One number is 5 more than another number. Three times the greater plus twice the lesser is 30. Determine the numbers."

The girl in the clip admitted that the question was "messing" with her as she couldn't decipher what it was asking her to do. It certainly seems complex, but if you break it down, it's quite straightforward to solve using some basic algebra.

The remainder of the TikTok video demonstrated how to answer the question - so if you don't want to know the solution yet, stop scrolling for a moment.

You can figure this out by first breaking down the written question into some simple algebraic equations. The first sentence in the question states that "one number", which we will label X, is worth five plus the value of another number - which we'll label Y.

So your first equation is: x = 5 + y.

Since we know from this first equation that X is greater than Y, we can then decipher what the second sentence is asking us. It states that three lots of X plus two lots of Y equals 30.

So 3x + 2y = 30.

Now it's just a matter of solving these two sums, which isn't necessarily easy but can be solved with a bit of algebra knowledge. The first thing you should do is solve the second sum, and you can start by substituting X for the value in the first sum.

This means your sum should now look like this: 3(5 + y) + 2y = 30.

Subtracting the 15 from the equation means you have to subtract it from the total, which would give you 5y = 15. Then, divide 15 by 5 to give you the value of Y, which is 3.

Going back to the first sum to finish it off, if Y is 3, then X must be 8, as X = 5 + 3.