Question

If 6 students can plant a garden in 5 hours, how many additional students should they get to help if they need to do the same job in 3 hours?

Answer 1

To solve this problem, we can start by finding out the total amount of work needed to plant the garden in terms of student-hours.

1. **Calculate total student-hours needed:**
If 6 students can complete the garden in 5 hours, we can calculate the total number of student-hours required:

\[
\text{Total student-hours} = \text{Number of students} \times \text{Time in hours} = 6 \times 5 = 30 \text{ student-hours}
\]

2. **Determine the new time requirement:**
Now, we want to complete the same amount of work (30 student-hours) in 3 hours. Let \( x \) represent the total number of students needed to complete the garden in this time frame.

\[
\text{Total student-hours} = x \times 3
\]

3. **Set up the equation:**
We can set the total student-hours equal to the amount we calculated earlier:

\[
x \times 3 = 30
\]

4. **Solve for \( x \):**

\[
x = \frac{30}{3} = 10
\]

This means **10 students** are needed to complete the garden in 3 hours.

5. **Determine additional students needed:**
Since they already have 6 students, we need to find out how many additional students are needed:

\[
\text{Additional students} = x - \text{Current students} = 10 - 6 = 4
\]

Therefore, they should get **4 additional students** to help complete the garden in 3 hours.