Question: A reporter is paid by the word and per article. She earns $.1 per word. She earns $60 per article. She has to finish three stories in the next 4 hours. She averages 10 words a minute. How much can she expect to earn per hour if she writes the entire time?
Answer with step-by-step thinking: She has 240 minutes to write because 4 x 60 = 240. She will write 2,400 words because 240 x 10 = 2,400. She will earn $240 for the words because 2,400 x .1 = 240. She will earn $180 from the articles because 3 x 60 = 180. She will earn $420 in total because 240 + 180 = 420. She will average $105 an hour because 420 / 4 = 105.
So the answer is 105.

Question: Two buses leave a pick-up point station with 60% and 70% of capacity full, respectively. If the people in the buses are all employees of a company, and the buses have a capacity of 150, calculate the total number of the employees in the two buses combined?
Answer with step-by-step thinking: If the first bus is 60% full, it has 60 / 100 * 150 = 90 passengers. The second bus is 70% full, meaning it has 70 / 100 * 150 = 105 passengers. The total number of people in the two buses is 105 + 90 = 195.
So the answer is 195.

Question: In a school with 800 students, 5/8 of the students are girls. Seven-tenths of the girls and two-fifths of the boys are in the primary grades, while the rest are middle schoolers. How many middle schoolers are there?
Answer with step-by-step thinking:
There are 800 x 5 / 8 = 500 girls. So, there are 800 - 500 = 300 boys. There are 500 x 7 / 10 = 350 girls that are in the primary grades. Hence, 500 - 350 = 150 girls are middle schoolers. There are 300 x 2 / 5 = 120 boys that are in the primary grades. Hence, 300 - 120 = 180 boy students are middle schoolers. Therefore, a total of 150 girls + 180 boys = 330 middle schoolers.
So the answer is 330.