Question

Jena and matt, working together, can mow the lawn in 4 hours. working alone, matt takes four times as long as jena. how long does it take jena to mow the lawn alone?

Answer 1

For this case, the first thing we must do is define a variable.

We have then:

x: number of hours that jena has to mow the lawn alone.

We now write the equation that models the problem.

We have then:

`(1)/(x) +(1)/(4x) =(1)/(4)`

From here, we clear the value of x.

We have then:

`(4x)/(x) +(4x)/(4x) =(4x)/(4)`

`4 + 1 = x`

`x=5`

Answer:

it takes jena 5 hours to mow the lawn alone