zisis
Machine A and machine B are each used to manufacture 660 sprockets. It takes machine A 10 hours longer to produce 660 sprockets than machine B. Machine B produces 10 percent more sprockets per hour than machine A. How many sprockets per hour does machine A produces?
6
6.6
60
100
110
book give a backsolving solution which I am not a big fan of...........please explain method...
Hi zisis,
Sorry you're not a fan of Kaplan's backsolving methods, but in this case it can be really helpful.
Here, a little estimation goes a long way. We know that A works 10 hours longer than B does, so if A is making 100 or 110 sprockets per hour, it would be making 1000+ sprockets--impossible! Even 60/hour is clearly too high
Given that, the correct answer has to be either A or B. So, we start where it's easiest--the whole number. If A makes 6 sprockets/hour, then A will take 110 hours to produce 660 sprockets. Meanwhile, if A makes 6 sprockets per hour and B makes 10% more, B must make 6.6 sprockets/hour. B would therefore take 100 hours to make 660 sprockets.
The question stem tells us that A should work 10 more hours than B. When we plug 6 back into the question, A does work 10 more hours than B--that confirms that A is the correct answer, with a minimum of crunchy math.