Question

Mail-order pharmacies typically use machines to count pills and dispense them into bottles, particularly pills that are prescribed on a regular basis by physicians, such as blood pressure medicine, cholesterol medicine, and diabetes medicine. Suppose a pharmacy has two pill counters that work in tandem (together). The batch of blood pressure pills in 1 hour, and the second counter can finish the same batch in 40 minutes. How many minutes should it take to finish a typical batch if both pill counters work together?

A) 18
B) 24
C) 36
D) 50

Answer 1

B. 24

Explanation:

it takes 60 minutes for one and 40 for another. since you don't know the time. the denominator is going to be x. The equation to solve this problem will be x/60 + x/40 = 1. Since you're adding, you want to have the same denominator. ( i chose to do 120) this will change the problem to 2x/120 + 3x/120 = 1. which will simplify to 5x/120=1. Multiply each side by 120 to get 5x=120 and divide each side by 5 to get x=24.