If it takes 2 days for 5 workers to finish painting a wall at a rate of 6 hours
per day, then how long will it take 7 workers to finish painting a wall at a
rate of 7 hours per day?
First of all 2 days at 6 hours per day is 12 hours.
So first of all we'll pretend the problem just speaks of hours like this:
It takes 12 hours for 5 workers to finish painting a wall. How many hours
will it take 7 workers to finish painting a wall?
The least common multiple of 5 workers and 7 workers is 35 workers.
35 workers is 7 times 5, so 35 workers can finish painting 7 walls in 12 hours.
7 workers is only as many as 35, so it will take 7 workers 5 times as long
or 60 hours to paint 7 walls. So to paint only 1 wall will take only th as
long as it takes to paint 7 walls. th of 60 hours is or or hours.
So they'll work 1 7-hour day and will finish after hours on the
second day.
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You can also use the worker-time-job formula, which is:
where
W1 = the number of workers in the first situation.
T1 = the number of time units (hours in this case) in the first situation.
J1 = the number of jobs in the first situation.
W2 = the number of workers in the second situation.
T2 = the number of time units (hours in this case) in the second situation.
J2 = the number of jobs in the second situation.
W1 = 5 W2 = 7
T1 = 12 T2 = the unknown quantity
J1 = 1 J2 = 1
hours. So they'll work 1 7-hour day and will finish after
hours on the second day.
Edwin