Time And Work Shotcut

Time and Work is an important topic asked in banking, railway, insurance and other
competitive exams like IBPS Clerk, SBI Clerk, SSC CGL, IBPS PO, SBI PO, CAT, NIACL
AO etc. This article is a part of ''Shortcut Techniques’’ series & will help you provide
the shortcut method to solve time and work problem. This Time and Work shortcut will
solve the Time and work problem quickly & will help you save at least 1 minute per
problem.

Time and Work Shortcut - Fraction Conversion

An effective Time and work shortcut trick that will help you to solve the Time and Work
problem is this Fraction conversion table. Try to directly remember fraction
conversion into percentage. Check some examples given in the table below.

Number of days required to complete Work that can be done Efficiency in

the work per day Percent

n 1/n (100/n)%

1 1/1 100%

2 1/2 50%

3 1/3 33.33%

4 1/4 25%

5 1/5 20%

6 1/6 16.66%

7 1/7 14.28%

8 1/8 12.5%

9 1/9 11.11%

10 1/10 10%

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11 1/11 9.09%

For example, let us suppose that A can do a job in 10 days.

1st method: Fraction Technique

A = 10 days i.e so work done in a day is 1/10th.

2nd Method: Efficiency Technique

Work done by a person in unit time is defined as efficiency in Time and Work Problems

A = 10 days so efficiency of A per day = 100/10 = 10%

Time and Work Shortcut - Time and Work Questions

Now we will go through some examples to understand this time and work shortcut trick
closely.

Q1. Anil can do a job in 10 days. Babu can do the same job in 5 days. In how many days
they can complete the job if they work together?

1. 6 days
2. 3.33 days
3. 7.25 days
4. 7.5 days
5. None of these

Ans: 3.33 days

Solution:

Anil can do a job in 10 days,

So efficiency of Anil = 100/10 = 10%

Similarly, Babu’s efficiency = 100/5 = 20%

Combined efficiency of Anil + Babu per day becomes = 20 + 10 = 30%

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Now, we have to find out the number of days taken by both Anil and Babu to do 100%
work,

Since they can do 30% wok in 1 day,

So, they will 100% work in 100/30 = 3.33 days

NOTE: Efficiencies get added directly!

Q2. Anil and Babu can do a job in 8 days. Babu and Charan can do the same job in 12
days. Anil, Babu and Charan can do the job in 6 days. In how many days Anil and
Charan can complete the job?

1. 6 days
2. 8 days
3. 10 days
4. 12 days
5. None of these

Ans: 8 days

Solution:

Anil and Babu can do a job in 8 days

∴ Combined efficiency of Anil + Babu = 100/8 = 12.5% ……………………………………...(1)

Similarly, combined efficiency of Babu + Charan = 100/12 = 8.33%..........................(2)

Similarly, combined efficiency of Anil + Babu + Charan = 100/6 = 16.66%................(3)

So now, if we want to calculate the efficiency of Anil and Charan together, we need to
first calculate the individual efficiency of Anil and Charan.

So we first deduct equation 1 from equation 3 to get the efficiency of Charan. Then we
deduct equation 2 from equation 3 we will get the efficiency of Anil.

Let’s calculate the efficiency of Charan = (Anil + Babu + Charan) – (Anil + Babu) =
16.66 – 12.5 = 4.16%

In the same way, we calculate the efficiency of Anil = 16.66 - 8.33 = 8.33%

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So, combined efficiency of Anil and Charan = 8.33% + 4.16% ≈ 12.5%

∴ They need = 100/12.5 = 8 days

So they can complete the job in 8 days.

NOTE: This method looks long but only because it has been solved with all the steps.
When you attempt time and work question in the exam paper, try to solve it directly
using this technique, noting down only the figures, while performing all calculations
(especially fractions) mentally. You simply need to get into the habit of using this time
and work shortcut method, as it is easier to solve mentally. This will save you precious
time during the exam.

This Time and work shortcut trick teaches us not to get involved in fractions. Solving
fractions takes a lot of time and also there are chances of mistakes.

Test yourself and keep getting better by attempting this quiz on time and work.

Time & Work Quiz

Once you are done with this article, check the All-in-one Guide to Crack Time and
Work Problem.

All-in-One Guide to Crack all Time & Work Problems

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