Question 165032
1.  They kind of through a curve ball on this problem... lets call the number of years ago x.  and the man we will call A and the friend B.  so this is how we write the equation (A-x)=2(B-x)  we know that A=42 and B=33 so plug in
42-x=2(33-x) simplify   42-x=66-2x   x=24   so the answer is 24 years ago

2.Another curve... something seems to be wrong in the second question: to multiply two ages together in seven years from today as opposed to muliplying those ages 5 years ago and those products only have a difference of 5 is not possible imo