Suppose that Alex is a diligent hard-working third-year college student. One Wednesday, he decides to start the day by working through 150 practice
problems to study for the computer science class. Using a table to track his progress throughout the day, he notices that as the hours pass, it takes
him longer to solve the problems.
Time
Total Problems Solved
7:00 AM
0
8:00 AM
60
9:00 AM
105
10:00 AM
135
11:00 AM
150
Use the table to answer the following questions.
The marginal, or additional, gain from Amaia's first hour spent working, from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM, is
The marginal gain from Amaia's third hour spent working, from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, is
problems.
problems.
The following week, Amaia's computer science faculty advisor gives her some advice. In all their years of teaching they claim to observe that working
on 22.5 multiple choice questions boosts a student's test score by about the same amount as spending an hour reviewing lecture notes. For simplicity,
assume students are able to review lecture notes at a constant pace during each hour spent studying.
Given this information, in order to use her 4 hours of time spent studying to get the highest possible test score, how many hours should she have
spent solving multiple choice problems, and how many hours should she have spent reviewing lecture notes?
0 hours working on problems, 4 hours reading
1 hour working on problems, 3 hours reading
3 hours working on problems, 1 hour reading
4 hours working on problems, 0 hours reading