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18 votes
18 votes
Bart is writing lines on a chalkboard that is initially empty. It ordinarily takes Bart 50 minutes to cover the whole board; however, today, Nelson is erasing the board while Bart is writing. Nelson can erase the board in 80 minutes by himself. If they work simultaneously, how long will it be until the whole board is covered?

User Shawn Wernig
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1 Answer

22 votes
22 votes

think about this conceptually first. The difference between their rates of work is going to be the total speed at which the chalk board fills up (speed of writing - speed of erasing).

Ok, so we need to find the speed that Bart is writing, and the speed at which Nelson is erasing.

Bart: 50 minutes/ 1 board

However, we want to find his speed, which will be in boards/minute. Flip the fraction to get 1 board/50 minutes. Then multiply top and bottom by 1/50 in order to get 1/50 board per minute.

Bart's Speed = 1/50 board per minute

Do the same for Nelson, to get 1/80 board per minute (erasing).

The difference between these will be 1/50 - 1/80 = 3/400 board per minute

Since we want to know how long it will take to fill the board at this rate, we multiply 1 board * 1/(3/400) minute per board - this is the same as 1 * 400/3

So, the answer is 400/3 minutes, or 133.33 minutes, or 2 hours, 13 minutes.

#2

This is the same idea as #1. His speed without the headwind is 2000 miles/5 hours = 400miles/hour.

His speed with the headwind is 2000 miles/8 hours = 250 miles/hour.

400m/h - 250m/h = 150m/h

The speed of the wind is 150 miles/hour.

User Michael BW
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