How to Solve Work Rate Problems

A detailed tutorial on solving work rate problems. Step by step tutorial including several examples of work rate problems for reference.

A work rate problem is a word problems that asks you to calculate the amount of time it will take to do something with two different rates of work. They first show up in basic algebra courses but work rate problems get more complicated and will continue on even in calculus. It is easier to solve work rate problems if you use a chart. First, you need to find the task rate – the rate at which each person is doing something. You do this by dividing the number of tasks (which should be one) by how many hours it takes them to finish it. Then you choose a variable for time. Your task will take that variable divided by the number of hours. You should come up with 2 (or more) results for task. Add these results together and have them equal the number of people there are total working on the task. Then solve for your time variable. Sometimes it will be difficult to solve for the time variable without using an algebra trick of multiplication to change the numbers a bit.