Problem Solving

Month Number of Days Worked
June 20
July 17
August 19

The table above shows the number of days worked by a certain sales representative in each of three months last year. If the number of sales calls that the representative made each month was proportional to the number of days worked in that month and if the representative made a total of 168 sales calls in the three months shown, how many sales calls did the representative make in August ?

A. 50
B. 51
C. 56
D. 57
E. 60

OA is D

Divide all the options by 19 and see which gives the whole number and 57 does so answer D.

The key word in this problem is the word proportional. Let's say that the representative made x calls each day of the month for 3 months. Because the number of sales calls are proportional to the number of days worked by the representative, it's safe to assume the following:

June- In this month, the representative made 20x calls.

July- In this month, the representative made 17x calls.

August- In this month, the representative made 19x calls.

20x+17x+19x=168

x=3

# of calls made in August- 19(3)=57 calls.