The ratio of the ages of mandy and sandy is 2: 5. after 8 years, their ages will be in the ratio 1: 2. what is the difference between their present ages?

Let  represent Mandy's age and  represent Sandy's.

From the first statement we have:


From the second statement we have:


So we need to solve this system of equations:


Express  from first equation equation:



Replace found value in second equation and solve the resulting equation:







Replace found value in first equation and solve the resulting equation:




So, Mandy is 16 years old and Sandy is 40 years old. The difference between their ages is 40 - 16 = 24 years.