Janet can shovel snow from her driveway in 40 minutes. Bill can do the same job in 55 minutes. How long would if they worked? together?

Question

Please help me with this math word problem... I've been trying to get the answer but I've given up, please help me I will appreciate it very much 

Answer 1

Hello, thank you for taking the time to post your question!

Janet’s rate can be expressed as 1/40 of driveway per minute

Similarly Bill’s rate could be expressed as 1/55 driveway per minute

So if they worked together, the combined rate would be

1/40 + 1/55 = 0.043 driveways per minute

Dividing by the rate then gives

1/0.043 = 23.16 minutes to finish the driveway if they worked together

I hope that helps get you moving in the right direction! Feel free to reach out if you have any additional questions beyond that :)

Answer 2

This problem can be answered using the combined work formula: (J * B)/(J + B) J represents the time it takes Janet to shovel the snow and B represents the time it takes Bill to shovel the snow. Just plug in the times and you get: (40 * 55)/(40 + 55) = 2200/95 = 23.157 So working together it takes Janet and Bill a little over 23 minutes to shovel the driveway.