In: Economics
Rosa is a hard-working college sophomore. One Saturday, she decides to work nonstop until she has answered 250 practice problems for her physics course. She starts work at 8:00 AM and uses a table to keep track of her progress throughout the day. She notices that as she gets tired, it takes her longer to solve each problem.
Time | Total Problems Answered |
---|---|
8:00 AM | 0 |
9:00 AM | 100 |
10:00 AM | 175 |
11:00 AM | 225 |
Noon | 250 |
Use the table to answer the following questions.
The marginal, or additional, gain from Rosa’s first hour of work, from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM, isproblems.
The marginal gain from Rosa’s third hour of work, from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM, isproblems.
Later, the teaching assistant in Rosa’s physics course gives her some advice. “Based on past experience,” the teaching assistant says, “working on 37.5 problems raises a student’s exam score by about the same amount as reading the textbook for 1 hour.” For simplicity, assume students always cover the same number of pages during each hour they spend reading.
Given this information, in order to use her 4 hours of study time to get the best exam score possible, how many hours should she have spent working on problems, and how many should she have spent reading?
0 hours working on problems, 4 hours reading
2 hours working on problems, 2 hours reading
3 hours working on problems, 1 hour reading
4 hours working on problems, 0 hours reading