Need help answering this math question please.

Question

If Sam gives 7 baseball cards to Lee, Lee will then have five times as many cards as Sam. However, if Lee gives Sam 7 baseball cards, both will have the same number of cards. How many cards does each currently have?

Answer 1

Emilio, Word problems are just a curtain of words hiding a simpler problem.

First, identify the unknown values.

Let S be the number of cards Sam has.

Let L be the number of cards Lee has.

Now translate the other information from English into math.

If Sam gives 7 cards to Lee, Sam will have S -7, and Lee will have L + 7.

Now express the relationship beteeen them:

(S -7)*5 = (L+7)

What else do we know?

(L-7) = (S+7)

We now have two equations with two unknowns, and I’ll bet you know how to take it from here.

If not, please add a comment, and I’ll gladly respond.