Gurpinder wrote:
Hey Stuart,
Just had a question. In a problem like this where the work being done by both things is the same (240 files), can you substitute 1 for the 240 in all problems like this?
Would it work if i just entered 240 instead of 1?
Thanks,
Hi,
whenever the time given is for the two people to do the same amount of work, you can use the formula to calculate how long it would take them to do that amount of work combined.
Some questions ask how long it would take them to do a different amount of work, so you have to do one extra calculation at the end. Some examples:
While working alone at their respective constant rates, computer x processes 240 files in 4 hours and computer Y processes 240 files in 8 hours. If all files processed by these computers are same size, how long would it take the two computers, working at the same time and at their respective constant rates, to process a total of 480 files?
480 = 2 * 240 files, so the question is how long it takes to do 2 jobs instead of 1. Accordingly, we double the result of the formula.
While working alone at their respective constant rates, computer x processes 240 files in 4 hours and computer Y processes 240 files in 8 hours. If all files processed by these computers are same size, how long would it take the two computers, working at the same time and at their respective constant rates, to process a total of 120 files?
120 = 1/2 * 240 files, so the question is asking how long it takes to do 1/2 of a job instead of 1. Accordingly, we halve the result of the formula.
On the other hand, if the time given for each worker relates to a different amount of work, you can't just plug and play into the formula - you have to make adjustments first. For example:
While working alone at their respective constant rates, computer x processes 120 files in 4 hours and computer Y processes 360 files in 8 hours. If all files processed by these computers are same size, how long would it take the two computers, working at the same time and at their respective constant rates, to process a total of 360 files?
Here we can't simply substitute 4 and 8 into the formula, because computer x's time is for 120 files, which is only 1/3 of the job. So, before using the formula, we have to calculate how long it would take X to do a full job, i.e. 360 files.
360 is 3 times 120, so it will take 3 times as long. 4 hours * 3 = 12 hours for a full job. Now we can let X=12 and Y=8 and apply the formula.