problem about the amount of potatoes in a bucket based on the amount of time it took to make the required pies and peel potatoes over two days.

Question

Each morning, a deli worker has to make several pies and peel a bucket of potatoes. On Monday, it took the worker 2 hours to make the pies and an average of 1.5 minutes to peel each potato. On Tuesday, the worker finished the work in the same amount of time, but it took 2.5 hours to make the pies and an average of one minute to peel each potato. About how many potatoes are in a bucket?

Answer 1

120 + 1.5x = 150 + 1x

 

Time of make pies on Monday = 120 minutes

Time to make pie on Tuesday - 150 minutes

x = number of potatoes

 

Solve for x

 

0.5x = 30

x = 60

:)

Answer 2

The deli worker is using the same amount of time on both Monday and Tuesday.  So that means that we can create two equations and make them equal to each other to solve for x which would be the number of potatoes.  The trick to this problem is that two different units of time are used for pies and potatoes.  Can we express them as the same unit of time, perhaps minutes?  So, to start off creating the equation for Monday, 120 minutes + 1.5x = the equation for Tuesday.  Can you finish the equation for Tuesday and then solve for x?

Answer 3

LET T = TOTAL TIME EACH DAY, AND LET X = #POTATOES IN A BUCKET

 

MONDAY: 2 HRS = 120MIN

     SO         120 + 1.5X = T

 

TUESDAY: 2.5 HRS = 150 MIN

     SO         150 + 1.0X = T  OR 150 + X = T

 

THEREFORE, SINCE T IS THE SAME, 120 +1.5X = 150 + X

COMBINING LIKE TERMS WE GET 0.5X = 30, SO X = 60

 

THERE ARE 60 POTATOES IN A BUCKET