Multi-step problems require two or more operations. For example: 'Maria has 24 stickers, gives 6 to a friend, and buys 10 more. How many now?' requires subtraction then addition (24 − 6 + 10 = 28). Drawing pictures and identifying the sequence of steps are key strategies.
When you first learned word problems — "Maria has 8 apples and gets 5 more; how many does she have?" — each problem required exactly one operation. You identified what was happening, chose an operation, and solved. Multi-step word problems follow the same pattern, but the story requires at least two operations before you reach the final answer. The challenge is not harder arithmetic — it is figuring out what to do first, and in what order.
The most useful first move is to read the whole problem before calculating anything. Identify every quantity given and the quantity being asked for. Then ask: can I calculate the final answer directly from the given numbers? Usually not — there is a missing piece in the middle. In the sticker example (24 stickers, give away 6, buy 10 more), the question asks for the final count. You cannot get there from 24 and 10 directly — you must first find the count after giving some away (24 − 6 = 18), which becomes the input for the second step (18 + 10 = 28). That intermediate result is called a hidden quantity — it is neither given in the problem nor the final answer, but you must find it along the way.
A reliable strategy is drawing a picture for each step of the story. Show the 24 stickers, cross out 6, then draw 10 being added. Visuals turn abstract words into a concrete scene, making it easier to see what you know and what you still need to find. Another strategy is writing a separate equation for each step rather than trying to capture everything in one equation. Treat the problem like a story with chapters: one equation per chapter, using the previous chapter's answer as the next chapter's starting number.
Your earlier work on addition word problems and multiplication word problems gave you the individual operations — you already know how to add, subtract, and multiply. Multi-step problems are testing whether you can organize a sequence of operations correctly, not whether you can do harder individual calculations. After you finish, re-read the original question and check that your final answer actually addresses what was asked, not just the last calculation you did. This habit catches most errors before they happen.