A certain culture of bacteria quadruples every hour. If a container with these bacteria was half full at 10:00 a.m., at what time was it one-eighth full?
(A) 9:00 a.m.
(B) 7:00 a.m.
(C) 6:00 a.m.
(D) 4:00 a.m.
(E) 2:00 a.m.
Also I'd love to know how to solve this and what "type" of questions this is so I can look for and practice others like this one.
Here are two problems I can't figure out.
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The answer will be choice A.
It says the culture quadraples every hour.
Meaning every hour, it increases 4x.
At 10.00 AM, the container is half (1/2) full.
At 9.00 AM, it will be 1/4th of what it is at 10.00 AM
meaning (1/4)*(1/2) = 1/8.
Hence, the answer is (A).
This falls in the fractions category.
Hope this helps.
It says the culture quadraples every hour.
Meaning every hour, it increases 4x.
At 10.00 AM, the container is half (1/2) full.
At 9.00 AM, it will be 1/4th of what it is at 10.00 AM
meaning (1/4)*(1/2) = 1/8.
Hence, the answer is (A).
This falls in the fractions category.
Hope this helps.
You can also pick some numbers to make this easier.
Assume container capacity is 8.
We need to find the time for when it is 1/8 full.
(1/8) * 8 = 1
So we need to find what time the container was at 1.
We are given that the container is half full at 10AM
10AM -> (1/2) * 8 = 4
We are also given that the bacteria quadruples ever hour.
9AM -> 1
10AM -> 4
11AM -> 16
Therefore, the answer is A, since the container was at 1 at 9AM. Hope that helps.
Assume container capacity is 8.
We need to find the time for when it is 1/8 full.
(1/8) * 8 = 1
So we need to find what time the container was at 1.
We are given that the container is half full at 10AM
10AM -> (1/2) * 8 = 4
We are also given that the bacteria quadruples ever hour.
9AM -> 1
10AM -> 4
11AM -> 16
Therefore, the answer is A, since the container was at 1 at 9AM. Hope that helps.
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This problem is easily solved if you work it forwards, starting from the time the container was â…› full. Let's start there:Mclaughlin wrote:A certain culture of bacteria quadruples every hour. If a container with these bacteria was half full at 10:00 a.m., at what time was it one-eighth full?
(A) 9:00 a.m.
(B) 7:00 a.m.
(C) 6:00 a.m.
(D) 4:00 a.m.
(E) 2:00 a.m.
1/8 x 4 = 1/2
So we see it took 1 hour to go from 1/8 full to 1/2 full. So at 9 am it was 1/8 full.
Alternate Solution:
Since the number of bacteria quadruple every hour, let's go backwards in time from the point where the container was ½ full:
(½)/4 = (½)/(4/1) = (½) x (¼) = ⅛.
We see that one hour earlier, the container was â…› full of bacteria. This was at 9 am.
Answer: A
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