As soon as the page loaded, a cheerful, blue owl with glasses appeared on the screen. “Hi, Leo! I see you’re stuck on solving equations. Want to try together?”

Cerebry broke the problem into tiny, un-scary steps. Hint 1: Look at the equation: 3x + 5 = 20. What is being added to the term with ‘x’? Leo typed: 5 Cerebry: “Great! To undo addition, what do we do to both sides?” Leo remembered: Subtract 5. He typed: 3x = 15. Hint 2: Now the problem is 3x = 15. What is the 3 doing to the x? Leo: “Multiplying.” Cerebry: “Perfect! The opposite of multiplication is division. Divide both sides by 3.” Leo typed: x = 5. A little bell rang. “Correct!” said Cerebry. “You just solved for x!”

Leo shrugged. “Sure. Nothing else is working.”