Help with this Age question

[katyyy]

Hi All

I need help in solving this question ,

(1) Phillipa adds her age to her sister sonia's age .Between them they are half the age of their uncle Roy. Phillipa is 4 years older than sonia.Uncle Roy is 32 .How old is phillipa?

[Guest55]

Phillipa adds her age to her sister sonia's age .
Between them they are half the age of their uncle Roy.
Phillipa is 4 years older than sonia.
Uncle Roy is 32 .
How old is phillipa?

Unpick the information

Uncle Roy is 32
Between them they are half the age of Uncle Roy .... so their ages add to?

Does that help?

[katyyy]

Thank You for the reply .
Please can you solve it .The answer is 10 .

[Guest55]

OK - their ages add to 16 - yes?

If they were the same age they'd each be 8 but we want ages 4 year apart - so add 2 to 8 for the elder and take 2 for the younger (2 is half the difference we want) - this approach always works when you want a specific difference between two numbers.

[ToadMum]

Do primary pupils still do 'number bonds'? 'What two numbers add up to 16?' is just, 'find number bonds to 16', which may or may not be harder than the 'number bonds to 20' that ours did somewhere in the infants (I'm not a teacher and as a classroom helper I was always being told 'we don't do that' when I suggested something to bored kids who finished a task early ). Then just choose the pair that has a difference of 4.