SOLUTION: How many houses can 10 people build if: a) it takes a team of 3 people to build each house, and b) each person can work on up to six houses.

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Question 874069: How many houses can 10 people build if:
a) it takes a team of 3 people to build each house, and
b) each person can work on up to six houses.

Answer by KMST(5328) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
At most, each person works on 6 houses,
and each of the 10 people will tell you
"I built 6 houses."
If you multiply, you may think that 10%2A6=60 houses were built.
However, since each house was build by a team of 3 people,
that 10%2A6=60 you calculated includes each house counted 3 times
(counted once for each of the people in the team that built that house).
The number of houses built is really 1%2F3 of 10%2A6=60 .
It is
10%2A6%2F3=60%2F3=highlight%2820%29 .

NOTE:
If a problem seems too hard, and you get no answers here, there is another website that might help.
This problem would be answered instantly by a young math genius at the forums in the artofproblemsolving website.
Those people leave no challenge unanswered.
However, you need to ask the problem in a forum where it will not be too easy for them
(I would ask this one at the middle school level),
and the explanation may be hard for you to understand.