<PRE><B>Question 1100456</B>
&lt;br&gt;You say this is for third grade math.  So a solution using algebra doesn&#39;t seem appropriate.&lt;br&gt;
So use logical reasoning.&lt;br&gt;
But you also say you aren&#39;t sure what the question is asking.  That is no surprise, since the problem as you show it is poorly worded.  That is especially bad if it is for third graders.&lt;br&gt;
The problem says &quot;Marie is 10 years older and her sister, Sarah, is 8 years old.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
Grammatically, that sentence is incomplete.  Marie is 10 years older?  Older than whom?  The only possible interpretation is that she is 10 years older than her sister Sarah -- but the problem should say so: &quot;Marie is 10 years older than her sister Sarah, who is 8 years old.&quot;&lt;br&gt;
So now we have the poor presentation of the problem taken care of: Marie is 18 and her sister is 8.
Now let&#39;s look at what the problem asks us to find.&lt;br&gt;
&quot;How many years ago was Marie twice as old as Sarah was then?&quot;&lt;br&gt;
To me, the &quot;then&quot; is not only unnecessary, but confusing.&lt;br&gt;
But analyzing the problem logically from here, we have a problem.  If Marie is now 10 years older than Sarah, then she will always (for the sake of age problems like this!) be 10 years older.&lt;br&gt;
So the time when Marie will be twice as old as her sister is when Marie is 20 and Sarah is 10.&lt;br&gt;
But that is two years from now -- not some number of years ago.&lt;br&gt;
So my assessment is that this is an extremely poorly written problem for any age, but especially for young students who are trying to learn from working the problem.  The grammar used in the statement of the problem is poor; and the question that is asked has no answer.</PRE>