Question

It takes 32 minutes for 3 people to paint 4 walls. How many minutes does it take 4 people to paint 7 walls?

Answer 1

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation:

Assuming each person gets the same amount of work done, each wall in the first scenario takes 8 minutes to paint. If 3 people paint 4 walls, then each person is painting 1 1/3 of a wall. We can use that to find out how long it takes one person to paint 1 1/3 walls:

$\frac{8min}{wall}*\frac{4}{3}walls=\frac{32}{3}min$. Interpreting that, it takes each person 10 2/3 minutes to paint 1 1/3 walls.

If 4 people paint 7 walls, that means that each person is painting 7/4 walls, or 1.75 walls each. Using the fact that it takes 10.66666 minutes to paint 1.33333 walls, we can find out how many minutes it will take to paint 1.75 walls:

$\frac{10.6666}{1.33333}=\frac{x}{1.75}$ Cross multiply to get

18.666655 = 1.3333x so

x = 14.000 minutes