Question

fred can stock the shelves of the canned vegetable aisle in 8 hours. wanda can stock the same shelves in 6 hours. how long would it take fred and wanda working together to stock the shelves? (include units in your answer. more information. round your answer to one decimal place.)

Answer 1

Fred and Wanda, working together, would take approximately 3.4 hours to stock the shelves.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine how long it would take for Fred and Wanda to stock the shelves together, we need to calculate their combined work rate. Fred stocks the shelves in 8 hours, so his work rate is 1/8 (he completes 1/8th of the task per hour). Wanda's rate is 1/6, as she can stock the shelves in 6 hours. Combined, their work rate is the sum of their individual rates: (1/8) + (1/6).

To add these fractions, we find a common denominator. The smallest common multiple of 8 and 6 is 24, so we rewrite the rates as 3/24 and 4/24, respectively. Adding these gives us a combined rate of 7/24.

Therefore, the time it takes for Fred and Wanda working together to stock the shelves is the reciprocal of their combined rate: 24/7 hours, which is approximately 3.4 hours when rounded to one decimal place.