Question

A house painting company assigns three employees to a particular customers house. The first paints 3/7 of the house in her 4 hour shift. The second paints another 1/4 of the house before the third takes over. If they all paint at the same rate, how many hours will it take the third employee to finish painting the remainder of the house by himself?

1) 0.32
2) 2.00
3) 3.00
4) 3.63
5) 9.33

Answer 1

The third employee will take 2.29 hours to finish painting the remainder of the house by himself.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the number of hours it will take the third employee to finish painting the remainder of the house by himself, we need to find the fraction of the house that is left to be painted. The first employee paints 3/7 of the house, so the remaining fraction is 1 - 3/7 = 4/7.

The second employee paints 1/4 of the remaining fraction, which is (4/7) * (1/4) = 4/28. Therefore, the third employee needs to paint 4/7 - 4/28 = 16/28 of the house.

If all three employees paint at the same rate, and the third employee needs to paint 16/28 of the house, it will take him 4/7 of the time it took the first employee to paint 1/7 of the house. Since the first employee took 4 hours to paint 3/7 of the house, the third employee will take (4/7) * 4 = 16/7 = 2.29 hours to paint 16/28 of the house.