A group of 5 craftsmen, working together at the same rate, can finish a job in 3 hours. How long will it take a group of 4 apprentices working together to do the same job?

1) each apprentice works at 2/3 the rate of a craftsman.

2) The 5 craftsmen and the 4 apprentices working together will take 45/23 to finish the job.





Answer is D.
Questions:
1) does "A group of 5 craftsmen, working together at the same rate, can finish a job in 3 hours" translate into w=RT ----> (1/5) = R3-------> 1/15=R
Is that correct, setting W equal to 1 over the number of workers? If not, how do i translate that to find the rate of one craftsman

2) what does 45/23 mean. does that mean "45 parts of the job every 23 minutes?
can you please show algebraically using w=rt how statement 2 is sufficient.

thanks. i really need help understanding this. i need to get to a point where im not confused about how to translate sentences into w=rt so I can knock these type of questions out fast.

Hey TJ,

Good questions!

1) When you get those questions in which a certain number of people/machines can accomplish something in a certain amount of time, you can just divide by the number of people to get the individual rate (as long as you know that they all work at the same capacity). Here, if 5 craftsmen can do 1 job in 3 hours, you have:

Rate of 5 people = 1 job / 3 hours

divide both sides by 5 to get

Rate of 1 = 1 job / 15 hours

So you're right...I'd just make sure you think it through that way to ensure that you're not blindly plugging in...there's a definite reason for what you're doing!


2) That 45/23 should have units next to it to let you know "45/23 of what?". My read is that it should be hours (it's telling you a duration of time), so you'd have:

Rate of the team = 1 job / 45/23 hours