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?

1 answer

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.