Question

Three students can wash a car in 16 minutes. If the varies inversely with the number of students washing the car, how many minutes will it take two students to complete that same job?

Answer 1

Answer:

Two students will take 24 minutes to wash the car.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this case we can apply a rule of three to find out the time that will take for the students to wash the car. This has to be done such as:

3 students -> 16 minutes

2 students -> x minutes

3/2 = 16/x

But in this cases the problem states that this variables are inversely proportionate, which means that if there's less students washing the car they will take more time to finish the job. So we need to invert one of the fractions before computing the result.

3/2 = x/16

2*x = 3*16

x = 48/2 = 24 minutes.

Two students will take 24 minutes to wash the car.