SOLUTION: Four survivors in a lifeboat have enough water for 12 days. Calculate how long the water would have lasted if there had been six people on the the lifeboat.

Click here to see ALL problems on Percentage-and-ratio-word-problems

Question 1189847: Four survivors in a lifeboat have enough water for 12 days. Calculate how long the water would have lasted if there had been six people on the the lifeboat.
Found 2 solutions by ikleyn, Theo:
Answer by ikleyn(52902) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
Four survivors in a lifeboat have enough water for 12 days.
Calculate how long the water would have lasted if there had been six people on the the lifeboat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They have now 4*12 = 48 portions of water on board. For 6 people, it is enough precisely for 48/6 = 8 days. ANSWER

Solved.

Answer by Theo(13342) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
4 survivors have enough water to last 12 days.
inverse variation formula is y = k/x
if y = 12 and x = 4, then 12 = k/4 leading to k = 48.
when x = 6, the formula becomes:
y = 48/6 = 8,
if the water would have lasted 12 days with 4 people, then the water will last 8 days with 6 people.
that should be your answer.

you can also look at this as a people * rate * time = quantity type problem.
the time is 12 days.
the quantity is q liters of water.
the number of people is 4.
the formula becomes:
4 * r * 12 = q
r is equal to the rate that each person consumes water.
solve for r to get:
r = q / (12 * 4)
this becomes:
r = q / 48
this says that each person consumes 1/48 * the quantity of water each day.
the formula for 4 poeple becomes:
4 * q/48 * 12 = q
when the number of people is 6, the formula becomes:
6 * q/48 * t = q
t is the time in days.
6 * q/48 * t = q becomes:
6/48 * q * t = q
divide both sides of the eqution by q to get:
6/48 * t = 1
solve for t to get:
t = 48/6 which becomes:
t = 8.

you get 8 days with 6 people either way.
that appears to be your solution.
i'll be surprised if it isn't.