Question

One member of a gardening club can plant flowers in 12 hours. With two members of the club working together the job can be done in 8 hours. How long would it take the second member of the club , working alone to do the job

Answer 1

24 hours

Explanation:

One member of the gardening club can alone plant flowers in 12 hours.

So in 1 hour he can plant 1/12 of the flowers.

Let the time required by the second member of the club to plant flowers alone be x hours.

Then in 1 hour he can plant 1/x of the flowers.

Now when the two members work together,each hour they can plant:

`\[(1)/(12)+(1)/(x)\]` of the flowers.

But they can together complete the job in 8 hours. So in one hour they plant 1/8 of the flowers.

=>
`\[(1)/(12)+(1)/(x)=(1)/(8)\]`

=>
`\[(1)/(x)=(1)/(24)\]`

=> x=24

So the second member can plant the flowers alone in 24 hours