SOLUTION: It takes 2 cleaners 40 minutes to clean a hall. How long would it take 5 cleaners? I tried by saying that it would minus 20 minutes for each cleaner who helped but I'm still not

Question 1073002: It takes 2 cleaners 40 minutes to clean a hall. How long would it take 5 cleaners?
I tried by saying that it would minus 20 minutes for each cleaner who helped but I'm still not sure.
Thanks,
Cecilia
Answer by ikleyn(52879)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
The simplest way to solve it and to answer the question is to calculate the men-minutes (or cleaner-minutes, if you want).

The cleaning the room requires 40*2 = 80 cleaner-minutes.

5 cleaners will do the work in = 16 minutes.

For many other solved joint work problems see the lesson
    - Rate of work problems
in this site.

Also, you have this free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-I in this site
    - ALGEBRA-I - YOUR ONLINE TEXTBOOK.

The referred lesson is the part of this textbook under the topic "Rate of work and joint work problems" of the section "Word problems".

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