# What is the value of X?

24 6 63

132 4 14

23 x 17

The answer is either : 21, 14, 3 or 2

• Where does this puzzle come from? Oct 5 '18 at 22:44
• You went here too: math.stackexchange.com/questions/2943755/…
– Duck
Oct 6 '18 at 1:08
• Is this a coincidence: facebook.com/rgnblk/posts/…
– Duck
Oct 6 '18 at 1:12
• I will reiterate what I said already on math.se. There is not enough information to uniquely determine an answer. Here are two different rules you could follow and still get an answer from your answer key. Given a row x y z, take the leading digit from x and multiply this by the one's digit of z to make y. You have 2*3 = 6, you have 1*4=4 and so you have 2*7=14 and so with this you have 14 as the answer. Oct 6 '18 at 5:08
• An equally valid answer: given a row x y z, compare x and z. Whichever is bigger, add all digits except the one's digit together and use this to make y. 63 is bigger than 24 so the middle of the first row is 6. Meanwhile 132 is bigger than 14 so 1+3=4 is the middle of that row. The last row then would be 23 2 17 since 23 is bigger than 17, so you have $2$ as the answer. Both examples are totally contrived and there is nothing suggesting which answer is the "better" answer. Similarly contrived examples exist with the other answerkey choices as answers. Oct 6 '18 at 5:10