Question

Each day at the North Pole, 5,000 Etch-A-Sketches need to be made. The typical elf can make 1,000 in 12 hours (1 working day). If there is a team of three elves working together to meet the quota, and Buddy is one of those team members, they will come up short! Buddy can make 85 Etch-A-Sketches in 12 hours. When Buddy gets sent to test the Jack -in-the-boxes, the other two elves pick up the slack.

How many additional Etch-A-Sketches will each elf need to make to reach 5,000?
How long will it take both elves, together, to finish the daily quota (assume they work at exactly the same rate).

Answer 1

Each elf needs to make an additional 2,458 Etch-A-Sketches to reach 5,000. Both elves, working together, will finish the daily quota in approximately 1 hour and 1 minute.

Step-by-step explanation:

If Buddy can make 85 Etch-A-Sketches in 12 hours, then the other two elves need to make up for the remaining number of Etch-A-Sketches to reach 5,000. The number of additional Etch-A-Sketches each elf needs to make can be calculated as follows:

• Total Etch-A-Sketches needed: 5,000
• Etch-A-Sketches made by Buddy: 85
• Total Etch-A-Sketches needed from the other two elves: 5,000 - 85 = 4,915
• Number of additional Etch-A-Sketches each elf needs to make: 4,915 / 2 = 2,457.5

Since we can't have a fraction of an Etch-A-Sketch, each of the other two elves needs to make an additional 2,458 Etch-A-Sketches to reach 5,000.

To find out how long it will take both elves, together, to finish the daily quota, we can calculate the total number of Etch-A-Sketches they can make in 12 hours and divide it by the daily quota of 5,000:

• Total number of Etch-A-Sketches both elves can make in 12 hours: 2,457.5 * 2 = 4,915
• Time required for both elves to finish the daily quota: 5,000 / 4,915 = 1.018 hours or approximately 1 hour and 1 minute