How old are Sam and Amy now, given that Sam is 4 years younger than Amy and five years ago he was half her age?

by

To solve this problem, we need to set up some equations based on the information provided. Let’s denote Amy’s current age as A and Sam’s current age as S.

According to the problem, we know two key pieces of information:

  • Sam is 4 years younger than Amy:
  • S = A – 4
  • Five years ago, Sam was half Amy’s age:
  • S – 5 = 0.5 * (A – 5)

Now, let’s substitute the first equation into the second equation to find their ages:

S - 5 = 0.5 * (A - 5)
(A - 4) - 5 = 0.5 * (A - 5)

This simplifies to:

A - 9 = 0.5A - 2.5

Next, we can rearrange it:

A - 0.5A = 9 - 2.5
0.5A = 6.5
A = 13

Now that we’ve found Amy’s age, we can find Sam’s age by substituting back into the first equation:

S = A - 4 = 13 - 4
S = 9

Therefore, Amy is currently 13 years old, and Sam is 9 years old.

Leave a Comment