Middle School:
Question: It takes a barber 12 minutes to shave a face and 30 minutes to give a haircut. The barber works for 3 hours straight and spends twice as much time shaving faces as he does giving haircuts. If none of his customers get both a haircut and a shave, then how many customers does he see in total?
Answer: 12 customers
Solution: If the barber spends twice as much time shaving faces as he does giving haircuts, he must spend 2 hours shaving faces and 1 hour giving haircuts. Since it takes 12 minutes to shave a face, the barber shaves 5 faces per hour - that's 10 in 2 hours. Each haircut takes 30 minutes, so he can give 2 haircuts in an hour. That means he sees 10+2=12 customers.
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