Not a lot to report this week because I've basically been in my room working on a couple projects - one personal and the other PC. The former is the GMAT exam, which I'll be taking shortly in Kiev. The PC library has several study guides for all manor of graduate school exams and I've been diligently going through several that recently relocated to my personal bookshelf. I feel pretty confident about the English section and only slightly less so about the math. Anyway, it's difficult to make a blog entry about studying for a graduate school exam all that interesting, so I'll stop - but not before leaving you with this pearl:
One pipe fills an empty tank in 5 hours. A second pipe fils the same tank in 3 hours. If both pipes are used together, how long will it take to fill 2/3 of the tank?
A. 8/15 hr
B. 3/4 hr
C. 5/4 hr
D. 15/8 hr
E. 8/3 hr
F. I could not do this problem because my parents failed to pay our gravity bill -Calvin
My remaining waking hours (and some of the non-waking ones, too) have been filled with ПУСК (pusk), the 2-day business seminar Bryan, Amy, and I will begin conducting in Russian in September or October. Our name is an acronym for Предпринимательское Учение о Стратегии и Комерции, which is literally translated as Entrepreneurialistic Learning about Strategy and Commerce. Catchy, eh? The real kicker is the word "pusk" means "start" in Russian, and we hope this will indeed help our attendees start their own businesses or at least help existing ones grow.
The three of us have written a small manual to address public speaking, business ethics, Econ 101, and others important topics related to the business world. The translation of our respective chapters was due 6 days ago, but yours truly was tardy because someone held a gun to my head and forced me to go to Morocco for vacation. So, I've been working overtime to catch up. Yesterday I finished the translation and now only need to type it up. So Bryan and Amy, if you're reading, it's coming soon.
4 comments:
Funny that you should use the word пуск today. I just spent the day teaching Windows (the Russian-localized version) to teachers at my school, and I've received word that I'll be teaching at least half, if not all seven, of the school's computer classes this year.
The question is: After two years in Moldova, which Russian word will I have said more, пуск or пропка? It depends on whether I teach enough this year to make up for the year of head start in drinking.
Spoiler Alert:
5x = 1
3y = 1
x = 3y/5
w(x+y) = 2/3
w (8y/5) = 2/3
24wy/5 = 2
12wy/5 = 1
12w/15 = 1
w = 5/4
C.
I hadn't used that part of my brain for at least five years.
The tank question floored us and reminded us how long ago we could do these problems.Being practical folk,we went out and bought 2 tanks and 2 different sized pipes and spent the night timing the outflows and the filling times.Don't have the answer because we had to clean up the flood in the kitchen.JUST KIDDING.
Let me give an easier way to figure out the answer... In one hour, one pipe fills the tank 1/5 of the way; the other pipe fills the tank 1/3 of the way in one hour. We need to add these two together. Converted to a common denominator we have:
3/15 + 5/15 = 8/15
So the tank will be 8/15 full in one hour using both pipes. We actually want the tank to be 2/3 full (10/15). So basically, we're going to need a little more than one hour.
Look at the answer choices.
A and B are definitely out because they are less than one. D and E are also definitely out because they are almost 2 and 3, respectively. The only answer that is a little more than 1 hour is C, 5/4.
[Or if you want to go through the trouble of figuring it out completely, use this equation:
8/15x = 2/3
(15/8) 8/15x = 2/3 (15/8)
x = 5/4
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