4 years before Paul's age is 3times the Alice age and the present age of Paul is 6times the Alice. What is the presents Paul's age?

Given the information in the question, Paul's current age is 8 years old. You can work this out by using an algebra type equation to understand each stage of the questions and come to a reasonable conclusion.

Below is the equation that was used to work out the age of Paul at present.

• How to find the answer
  

We will say that Alice's age = Y and Paul's current age = X

X - 4 = 3Y (Paul's age minus the 4 years)
X = 6Y (Paul's age is equal to 6 times that of Alice)
X = 6Y + 2 (X - 4) =6Y
Therefore X = 2 (X - 4)
X = 2X - 8
-X = -8
Therefore X = 8. This gives us the answer that Paul ( X ) is 8 years old at present.

• More information and help on algebra
  

Questions like this certainly look a lot like a riddle when first read, but the key is to break it all down and think logically about each piece of information included in the question.

If you wish to learn more algebra or hone your techniques, then you will find there are countless websites that are dedicated to this particular field of maths. A couple of websites you may wish to try first are www.algebra.com/ and www.algebrahelp.com/