If Bill can mow 3/4 of his lawn in one hour, how many minutes does it take Bill to mow his entire lawn?
2007-01-28 13:13:29 · 2 answers · asked by Ze'ev X 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
You had better be under 10 to not get this: lawn = 1 + (1 - 3/4) = 1hr, 15 min
2007-01-28 13:19:04 · answer #1 · answered by geek31459 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, geek 31459 missed the problem, so I guess you don't need to feel bad about asking the question.
With problems like this, you need to convert the information that is given to you into a "rate" at which the work is being done.
In this case, Bill is mowing at a rate of 3/4 of a lawn per hour.
How many hours would he have to work to do an entire lawn?
Well, if he worked x hours, he would complete (3/4)x lawns. (Example: If x = 4, he could complete 4 times (3/4) = 3 lawns.
We want to know how many hours it takes to complete ONE lawn, so we write the formula as follows:
(3/4) x = 1
If we divide each side of the equation by 3/4, we get:
x = 4/3 hours (1 divided by 3/4 = 4/3)
So the answer is 4/3 hours = 1 hour and 20 minutes (just 5 minutes longer than geek 31459's answer.
2007-01-28 21:36:03 · answer #2 · answered by actuator 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋