Occam's razor says the simplest explanation is the best.
The "arrows" can be decoded in a simple and consistent way:
- Black means addition, white means multiplication.
- The number of sidesvertices of the arrowhead seen as a polygon indicates by how much.
In the process you find A = 60, B = 252 and A+B = 312. Just as you did. It is not even difficult to find.
But your source says it is wrong.
There are different possibilities.
- Either this solution works just by chance and there is another better explanation,
- the solution is correct and your source is mistaken.
- there is a typo in the problem statement.
To me it is clear that the 1st possibility is such an extraordinary coincidence that the truth must be in the last 2 explanations.
Among these explanations, it seems more likely that there is an error in the formatting of the problem statement rather than in the transcription of the answer the source refers to.
So my (updated) conclusion is: it is an error in the problem statement.
For example, it is possible the last arrow was meant to have a triangular head. We have enough information to understand that it should mean "times 3". And the solution would be A=60, B=3x63=189, A+B=249.