Tuesday Tangle: Short Stories and Busy Librarians

Double trouble this week! These Tangles are a little shorter and – possibly – a little simpler, so I’ve put in two...

Tangle the First:

Jane has written two stories. Story A is 20,000 words shorter than Story B. Story B is three times as long as Story A.

How long is Story A?

Tangle the Second:

If five librarians can shelve 50 books in five minutes, how many books can one librarian shelve in one minute?

(solutions below)

Solutions

Tangle the First: 

We know that Story B is three times as long as Story A, so that means Story A is one-third of the length of Story B.

Therefore, whatever is the difference in words between Story A and Story B, that must equal two-thirds of Story B. We already know that the difference in length is 20,000 words, so 20,000 words must be equal to two-thirds of Story B.

If 20,000 words is two-thirds of Story B, then Story B must be 30,000 words long.

Therefore Story A, being 20,000 words shorter than Story B, is 10,000 words long.

Tangle the Second: 

Five librarians can shelve 50 books in five minutes. That means a single librarian could shelve one-fifth of that rate, which equals 10 books in five minutes.

Therefore, if we wish to know how many she can shelve in one minute, we need to divide her five-minute rate (10 books) by five. This gives us 2 books, which is the amount she can shelve in one minute.

How did you do?