Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /330 of 520

Algebra Difficulty 3.3 AMC 10/12 Find the answer

Homer began peeling a pile of 44 potatoes at the rate of 3 potatoes per minute. Four minutes later Christen joined him and peeled at the rate of 5 potatoes per minute. When they finished, how many potatoes had Christen peeled?

Pick one

Solution

After the 44 minutes of Homer peeling alone, he had peeled 4×3=124\times3=12 potatoes. This means that there are 44−12=3244-12=32 potatoes left. Once Christen joins him, the two are peeling potatoes at a rate of 3+5=83+5=8 potatoes per minute. So, they finish peeling after another 328=4\frac{32}{8}=4 minutes. In these 44 minutes, Christen peeled 4×5=204\times5=20 potatoes, A\boxed{\text{A}}

Want a route through all this instead of an archive? The track puts 2,000 problems in a working order, from AMC 10 level to the IMO shortlist.

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic and difficulty added by this site.