Can you solve this seemingly simple brain teaser?

Here’s one of those viral math problems you may have seen in your Facebook feed. This one’s from Math Meeting, and has led to a lot of arguments. Why don’t you give it a shot, then we’ll go over the answer.

(Did you get 15? Spoiler alert: It’s not 15.)

Let’s start with that first row. Three apples equal 30, so one apple must be worth 10. Off to a great start.

In row two, things don’t get much trickier. We already figured out what one apple is worth, so we can subtract 10 from 18.

Our bunch of bananas minus the split coconut equals two, so the split coconut must also equal two. Now we can solve the puzzle.

Here’s where I originally got tripped up. The coconut here is not the same as the coconut from the previous row. It’s only half. So instead of being worth two, it’s worth one. The apple, we know, is still 10.

But look closely at the bananas. There are only three bananas here. If the bunch we solved for earlier was four bananas, and had a value of four, then a bunch of three bananas is only worth three.

Coconut (1) + apple (10) + bananas (3) = 14.

Here’s a video from Math Meeting that walks you through it:

Now go stump your friends, or tell us if you see this leopard.