A little help please?

Question

I've been stuck on this word problem for a while now and I've had no luck getting help solving it.

It goes like this: There are five Scarecrows, A-E, and I have to find each scarecrows age. 
Scarecrow 1 states that they are E and that they are three times older than A. 
Scarecrow two states that B is one year younger than A, E is ten years younger than them, and that they are not C. Scarecrow 3 states that they are 20. 
Scarecrow 4 states that Scarecrow 5 is a lier and that they are half as old as C. 
Scarecrow five states that they are C and A. 
I was given a hint: Scarecrow 3 is C.
Please help. 
Thanks in advance.

Answer

Given: Scarecrow 1 states that they are E and that they are three times older than A. 

So 1 is E and E = 3A assuming it was supposed to be "three times AS OLD AS A." 
(three times older = four times as old The biggest problem in word problems is that very few people ever learned proper English.)

Given: Scarecrow 4 states that Scarecrow 5 is a lier and that they are half as old as C. There, you see? Who is "they"? #4 alone, or both #4 and #5? Proper English is to refer to a singular humanoid character as "he" and plural as "they" so people know what you are talking about.

No answer because the problem statement is ambiguous.

A little help please?

Answers (2)