Relax. Take deep breaths. Feel the fresh air flowing down to your toes. It's only some lame math. It can't scare you, because you have a brain and you know how to use it.
You need to find the Patriots' score. You don't know what it is yet, so let's give it a label. I've got a brilliant idea ! Let's call it 'P' !
What do we know ?
We know that the Patriots won the game, so we know that the Giants' score was less than 'P'.
How much less was it ? The question tells us that the difference in their scores was 20. So the Giants scored P-20 in the game.
What else do we know ? The question tells us the sum of the scores. OK. Let's addum up:
Patriots' score: P Giants' score: P - 20
Sum of the scores: P + (P - 20) = 2P - 20
The question tells us that their sum was 44.
OK. 2P - 20 = 44
That's an equation. Solve it for 'P' and you'll have the answer.
Add 20 to each side: 2P = 64
Divide each side by 2: P = 32
There you are. The Patriots scored 32. The Giants scored 20 less ... (32 - 20) = 12. The sum of their scores was (32 + 12) = 44. Everything checks out.
