If one person can finish mowing a field in 4 hours and another person can finish mowing a field in 8 hours. How long do you think it'll take to finish mowing the field if they work together?
Every hour A finishes 1/4 of the work, and B finishes 1/8 of the work.
Together they finish 3/8 of the work in one hour.
How long would it take A and B to finish 8/8 of the work?
yeah I did mine wrong. Hopefully I'll get partial credit on the test.
I would give partial credit to an answer with the right approach but with a minor mistake in the numbers. Good luck.
To determine how long it will take for two people to finish a task when they work together, we can use the concept of work rates. The work rate is the amount of work done per unit of time.
In this scenario, we have one person who mows the field in 4 hours, which means their work rate is 1 field/4 hours or 1/4 field per hour. Similarly, we have another person who mows the field in 8 hours, so their work rate is 1 field/8 hours or 1/8 field per hour.
When they work together, their work rates are combined. So, to find the total work rate when they work together, we add up their individual work rates.
1/4 + 1/8 = 2/8 + 1/8 = 3/8
Therefore, when they work together, they have a combined work rate of 3/8 field per hour. This means that they can mow 3/8 of the field in one hour.
To determine how long it will take to complete the entire field, we can divide the total work (1 field) by their combined work rate (3/8 field per hour).
1 field ÷ (3/8 field per hour) = 8/3 hours
So, when they work together, it will take approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes to finish mowing the field.