How many amendments does the Constitution have?

Why this is the answer

Twenty-seven. The number breaks down neatly: ten amendments arrived together in 1791 as the Bill of Rights, and seventeen more have been added in the two centuries since. The most recent, the 27th, has the strangest history of all. It was one of the twelve amendments the First Congress proposed on September 25, 1789. Ten of those twelve were ratified in 1791; this one was left behind. It stayed pending until May 7, 1992, when it was finally ratified, 203 years after it was proposed. That means the Bill of Rights and the newest amendment came out of the very same 1789 proposal. Its content is short and practical: if Congress votes to change the pay of senators and representatives, the change cannot take effect until after the next election for the House. In plain terms, members cannot give themselves a raise that kicks in before voters have had a chance to weigh in. The total stays at 27 because adding an amendment is so hard. It takes a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress, or a convention requested by two-thirds of the states, and then ratification by three-fourths of the states. Six amendments have cleared Congress and still failed in the states, which is a useful reminder that a proposal is not the same as an amendment. The number most often confused with 27 is 10, because the Bill of Rights is the group people know best. Seven is the other trap. The original Constitution, as USCIS describes it, has a preamble and seven sections, with the 27 amendments printed after them. If you picture the document as a book, you get seven chapters, then an appendix of 27 changes, the first ten of which are the Bill of Rights. The officer asks for the total, so give the one number that covers everything since 1787.