Problem Solving

swerve wrote:A company has two types of machines, type R and type S. Operating at a constant rate, a machine of type R does a certain job in 36 hrs and a machine of type S does the same job in 18 hours. If the company used the same number of each type of machine to do the job in 2 hours, how many machines of type R were used?

A. 3
B. 4
C. 6
D. 9
E. 12

The OA is C

Source: GMAT Prep

One approach is to assign a "nice" value to the job.
Say, the job is to make 36 widgets.

R does a certain job in 36 hours
This means that machine R's rate is 1 widget/hour

S does the job in 18 hours
This means that machine S's rate is 2 widgets/hour

So, their combined rate is 3 widgets/hour.


The question asks us to complete the job in 2 hours.
To make 36 widgets in 2 hours, the combined rate of the two machines must be 18 widgets/per hour.
If the combined rate (of 1 R machine and 1 S machine) is 3 widgets/hour, then we'd need 6 of each machine to reach a rate of 18 widgets/hour.

Answer: C

Cheers,
Brent

swerve wrote:A company has two types of machines, type R and type S. Operating at a constant rate, a machine of type R does a certain job in 36 hrs and a machine of type S does the same job in 18 hours. If the company used the same number of each type of machine to do the job in 2 hours, how many machines of type R were used?

A. 3
B. 4
C. 6
D. 9
E. 12

The OA is C

Source: GMAT Prep

Here's another approach . . .

When it comes to questions where we must complete an entire job, I often (not always) like to know what can be accomplished in 1 unit of time (in this case, 1 hour).

Machine R can complete 1/36 of the job in 1 hour.
Machine S can complete 1/18 of the job in 1 hour.
Since 1/36 + 1/18 = 1/12, we know that, combined, machines R and S can complete 1/12 of the job in 1 hour.

From here we can apply some logic.
If 1/12 of the job is completed in 1 hour (with 1 R machine and 1 S machine), then we could complete the entire job in 1 hour if we had 12 of each machine type.
However, the question asks us to find the # of machines required to complete the job in 2 hours. So, we need half as many machines. In other words, we need 6 of each machine.

Answer: C

Cheers,
Brent

swerve wrote:A company has two types of machines, type R and type S. Operating at a constant rate, a machine of type R does a certain job in 36 hrs and a machine of type S does the same job in 18 hours. If the company used the same number of each type of machine to do the job in 2 hours, how many machines of type R were used?

A. 3
B. 4
C. 6
D. 9
E. 12

The OA is C

Source: GMAT Prep

We have a combined worker problem for which we can use the following formula:

work (1 machine) + work (2 machine) = total work completed

Since we are completing one job, we can say:

work (1 machine) + work (2 machine) = 1

We are given that a machine of type R does a certain job in 36 hours and a machine of type S does the same job in 18 hours.

Thus, the rates for the two machines are as follows:

rate of machine R = 1/36

rate of machine S = 1/18

We are also given that the company used the same number of each type of machine to do the job in 2 hours. If we let x = the number of each machine used, we can multiply each rate by x and we have:

rate of x number of R machines = x/36

rate of x number of S machines = x/18

Finally, since we know some number of R and S machines worked for two hours, and since work = rate x time, we can calculate the work done by each type of machine.

work done by x number of R machines = 2x/36 = x/18

work done by x number of S machines = 2x/18 = x/9

Now we can determine x using the combined worker formula:

work (machine R) + work (machine S) = 1

x/18 + x/9 = 1

x/18 + 2x/18 = 1

3x/18 = 1

x/6 = 1

x = 6

Alternate Solution:

Let's find how much time it would take to complete the job if one type R machine and one type S machine were used.

In one hour, type R can complete 1/36 and type S can complete 1/18 of the job. Combined, they complete 1/36 + 1/18 = 3/36 = 1/12 of the job. If the two machines can complete 1/12 of the job in one hour, they can complete the whole job in 12 hours.

Next, we notice that the job was completed in 2 hours, which is 1/6 of 12. Since time and number of machines is inversely proportional, the number of type R machine - type S machine pairs must be 6 times the number of one pair; i.e. there must be 6 such pairs. Therefore, 6 machines of type R were used.

Answer: C