sandy wrote:
Paul is able to grade p essays every half hour, and Sarah is able to grade s essays every hour. If Paul and Sarah work together grading essays for h hours, then in terms of p, s, and h, how many essays will they grade?
Indicate all such amounts.
A. p+sh
B. 2p+sh
C. h(p+s)
D. 2h(p+s)
E. h(2p+s)
F. h(p+2s)
G. 2hp+hs
While I would recommend plugging in numbers, many test-takers might struggle to answer this problem in a reasonable amount of time, given the number of answer choices.
Such test-takers might be wise to consider the following:
Since we are given seven answer choices and are asked to indicate ALL such amounts, it is likely that more than one answer choice will be viable.
For this reason, a test-taker without enough time to solve the problem fully could scan the answer choices and look for two or more that are equal to one another.
When E is expanded, the result is the same as G:
2hp + hs
No other answer choices are equal to one another for all values h, p and s.
Thus, it is very likely that the correct answers are E and G.
Not a foolproof approach, but better than guessing blindly.