Hi Kara,
The statement says:
1) Treat the answer as text and look at the first character of the answer. See if it is a minus sign ( - )
2) If yes, grab everything in the answer except for the minus sign (from character in position 1 - *the second character* - to the end of the answer) and make that the value
3) In not, just give value of the question being looked at
the equivalent using numeric evaluation would be
if(${question} < 0, ${question} * -1, ${question})