SOLUTION: Jerry and George are painting a house. Jerry can paint the house in 3 days less time than George. Together they can do the job in 6 days. How long will it take each of them if they
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-> SOLUTION: Jerry and George are painting a house. Jerry can paint the house in 3 days less time than George. Together they can do the job in 6 days. How long will it take each of them if they
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Question 889057: Jerry and George are painting a house. Jerry can paint the house in 3 days less time than George. Together they can do the job in 6 days. How long will it take each of them if they work alone? Give your answer to the nearest tenth. Answer by josmiceli(19441) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Let = number of days George takes working alone
( 1 house ) / ( d days ) = George's rate
( 1 house ) / ( d-3 days ) = Jerry's rate
( 1 house ) / ( 6 days ) = rate working together
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Add their rates of working to get rate working together
Multiply both sides by
Complete the square
Take the square root of both sides
and
George takes 13.7 days working alone
Jerry takes 10.7 days working alone
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check:
OK
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Note that back when I took the square root of , I could have used the negative square root,
but that would have resulted in each one working alone
doing the house faster than working together which
is impossible
