This is one of the idioms in Idiom Strategy (pg. 111)

"as X as to Y"

Hi, TheChakra

I can't think of an example myself, so I've forwarded your question to our curriculum director. He is absolutely swamped right now, though, so it's probably going to take a little while before we hear back from him...

This is the curriculum director, and honestly, I can't think of one! This "idiom" does not seem to be right; we'll remove it in the next edition, unless the governor grants an unexpected reprieve.

The only semi-related OG problem I can find is #26: "natural phenomena... would appear the same to someone on the deck of a ship... as to a person standing on land." In this case, there are two idioms at work:

1) The verb idiom. This is one way you use the verb "appear": APPEAR adjective TO someone. "This appears strange to me."

2) A comparison idiom involving "the same..." as the object of a verb and two prepositional phrases that you want to compare. In this case, you always repeat the preposition. This clarifies the role of the second comparison term.

"She looks THE SAME TO me AS TO you."
"Jason pulled THE SAME trick ON me AS ON you."

Compare: "Jason pulled THE SAME trick ON me AS you." This sentence is ambiguous; in fact, I expect to hear a "... did" at the end: "Jason pulled the same trick on me as you did" compares "you" to "Jason," not to "me."

So, in problem #26, we have "natural phenomena... would APPEAR THE SAME TO someone... AS TO a person."

I suspect that the idiom you bring up came from a misreading of a problem such as this one. Sorry about the issue, and thanks for alerting us!