Hey Steve Burgos,

The question is asking you to increase the value of initialScore by 1 and then after you do that, you need to assign the resulting value to a constant named totalScore. We can do this using the increment operator (++).

var initialScore = 8
let totalScore = ++initialScore

/* what this code is doing, is taking the value of initial score and increasing it by 1
THEN the resulting value stored in the totalScore constant
AND initialScore will have the same value as totalScore

remember the = sign is the "assignment operator",
what we do on the right side of the = we assign to the left side */

Note that that the placement of the increment operator matters!

var initialScore = 8
let totalScore = initialScore++

/* this would not be correct because it would first set the value of totalScore to initialScore
THEN it would increment initialScore AFTER that.

So, totalScore would be the old value of 8 before it was incremented
and the new value of initialScore would be 9.
*/

Good Luck!

Hello:

The challenge may be confusing at first, but if you watch the previews video again, then the challenge may make a bit more sense.

So Pasan explains that to add a single value to a numeric variable there is an operator called "increment operator". With this operator you can increment or decrement a numeric value from a variable.

// increment (++)
// decrement (--)

var number = 1 

++number // This will increment the variable "number" to 2

--number // this will decrement the variable "number" to 1

I am going to copy and paste an explanation from "The Swift Programming language" book, which I believe will help you understand this better.

Increment and Decrement Operators

Like C, Swift provides an increment operator (++) and a decrement operator (--) as a shortcut to increase or decrease the value of a numeric variable by 1. You can use these operators with variables of any integer or floating-point type.

var i = 0
++i      // i now equals 1

Each time you call ++i, the value of i is increased by 1. Essentially, ++i is shorthand for saying i = i + 1. Likewise, --i can be used as shorthand for i = i - 1.

The ++ and -- symbols can be used as prefix operators or as postfix operators. ++i and i++ are both valid ways to increase the value of i by 1. Similarly, --i and i-- are both valid ways to decrease the value of i by 1.

Note that these operators modify i and also return a value. If you only want to increment or decrement the value stored in i, you can ignore the returned value. However, if you do use the returned value, it will be different based on whether you used the prefix or postfix version of the operator, according to the following rules:

• If the operator is written before the variable, it increments the variable before returning its value.
• If the operator is written after the variable, it increments the variable after returning its value. For example:

var a = 0
let b = ++a
// a and b are now both equal to 1
let c = a++
// a is now equal to 2, but c has been set to the pre-increment value of 1

In the example above, let b = ++a increments a before returning its value. This is why both a and b are equal to the new value of 1.

However, let c = a++ increments a after returning its value. This means that c gets the old value of 1, and a is then updated to equal 2.

Unless you need the specific behavior of i++, it is recommended that you use ++i and --i in all cases, because they have the typical expected behavior of modifying i and returning the result.

Hope this answer helps you with your challenge.

Good luck