terrible word problem. Help.

Question

Trent can deliver his newspapers in 60 minutes. It takes lois 30 minutes to do the same route. How long would it take them to deliver the newspapers if they worked together?

Answer 1

Let's pretend there are 60 newspapers to be delivered.  Lois works twice as fast as Trent.  The first minute they would deliver 3 newspapers.  The second minute they would deliver six newspapers. 

 

2X + X = 60      3X = 60      3X/3 = 60/3       X = 20 minutes