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Homework 4 Question 27 Solution

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12 views2 pages

Homework 4 Question 27 Solution

Uploaded by

Joyce Antonette Loria
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Homework 4 Question 27 Solution

Written by TL
It takes George 1 hour longer to mow the lawn than it takes Henry. Working
together, using two mowers, they can mow the lawn in 1 hour and 12 minutes.
How long would it take Henry to mow the lawn by himself? [Hint: Let x be
the time taken by George. How much of the lawn does George mow in 1 hour?
How much does Henry do in 1 hour? How much do they mow together in 1 hour?]

SOLUTION: Let’s follow the hints step by step.


1. Let x be the time taken by George.
In other words, In x hours, George will mow 1 lawn.
2. How much of the lawn does George mow in 1 hour?
Before we do this, let’s think of an example. Let’s say we take 5
hours long to complete 1 test. Now let’s ask ourselves, how much of
the test can we complete in 1 hour? If one test contains 10 questions,
and it takes us 5 hours to complete it, then in 1 hour, we should be
able to do

1 test 10 questions
= = 2 questions per hour
5 hours 5 hours
Going back to the original problem, George took x hours to mow 1
lawn. So in 1 hour, he should be able to do

1 lawn 1
= lawn per hour
x hours x
3. How much does Henry do in 1 hour?
The question states that George takes 1 hour longer than Henry to
mow the lawn. Then if George takes x hours, Henry should mow
the lawn in x − 1 hours. So in 1 hour, he should be able to do

1 lawn 1
= lawn per hour
(x − 1) hours x−1

4. How much do they mow together in 1 hour?


Since George mows x1 and Henry mows 1
x−1 in 1 hour, together, they
will mow the sum of their rates:

1 1
combined rate = + lawn per hour
x x−1

5. We have now exhausted all of the hints.

1
We now know the combined rate at which Henry and George mow
the lawn. From the problem, we also know that in 1 hour 12 minutes,
or 72
60 hours, they mow 1 lawn. With this equation, we this becomes
just another D = RT problem!
D=1 lawn
R = x1 + x−1
1
lawn per hour
72
T = 60 hour
Inputting these values into D = RT , we get
1 1 72
1 lawn = ( + lawn per hour) × ( hour)
x x−1 60
and we can solve for x:
1 1 72
(x · (x − 1))·1 = ( + ) · ( )·(x · (x − 1))
x x−1 60

1 1 72
(x · (x − 1)) = ( ·(x · (x − 1)) + ·(x · (x − 1))) · ( )
x x−1 60

72
x · (x − 1) = ((x − 1) + x) · ( )
60

72
x · (x − 1) = (2x − 1)·( )
60

60
( ) · x · (x − 1) = (2x − 1)
72

60
( ) · (x2 − x) = (2x − 1)
72

60 60
( ) · (x2 ) − ( )(x) − 2x + 1 = 0
72 72

60 60
( ) · x2 − ( − 2) · x + 1 = 0
72 72
Because we have x to the power of 2, we must use the quadratic
formula.
q
60
( 72 − 2) ± ( 60 2
72 − 2) − 4 ·
60
72
x= 60
2· 72

and we get x = .4 hours and x = 3 hours. Since x is the time


George takes, we need to subtract 1 hour to get Henry’s time. Time
is positive, so we use x = 3 hours. Then Henry takes 2 hours to
mow the lawn.
ANSWER: 2 hours

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