A magician has 3 more red hats than black hats and 4 fewer purple hats than black hats and has 14 hatsin all. How many hats of each color does he have. Show how you got the answer.

Answer 1

You can get the answer by using algebra or by guessing the number of black and seeing what works.

Perhaps you are not learning algebra yet.

If I guess there are 5 black hats, then there are 8 red ones and 1 purple one. The sum is 14. So that's the answer.

Answer 2

B+3=R

B-4=P

B+P+R=14

substitute for P and R

(B)+(B-4)+(B+3)=14

3B-1=14

solve from here