Expert: Scott A Wilson - 1/10/2010

Question
Maria can shovel snow from her driveway in 40 minutes.  bill can do the same job in 35 minutes.  How long would it take maria and bill to shovel the driveway if they worked together? _______minutes

Answer
The smallest common multiply of both is 280.

This is 7 * 40, so in 280 minutes, Maria could shovel 7 drives ways.

Since 280 = 8 * 35, Bill would be able to shovel 8 drive ways.

This means between the two of them, they could shovel 15 driveways in 280 minutes.

Since this is way too much work to be done and besides, we only have one driveway anyway,
take 280/15 to see how long it would take to shovel one driveway when they are working togethor.

Both numbers are divisible by 5, so it works out to 56/3, or 18 minutes, 20 seconds.

That's assuming there is no snow fight between them ...