Tick Tock

Algebra Level 2

Watson's house has an old-fashioned clock. Every time the hour hand points to an integer $n,$ which ranges from 1 to 12, it will ring $n$ times. Each of the $n$ rings continues for 3 seconds, with a 1-second pause between rings. Watson uses this clock to wake up at 6 a.m. every morning.

Suppose he is awakened from sleep at the first ring of some hour in the morning. How many seconds must pass before he can confirm the time is 6 a.m.?

6 18 23 24

1 solution

Interliser 727
Apr 29, 2018

As we know from above, the total time of Watson to know the time was 6 a.m. is 24 seconds.

You might have thought: $6 \times 3$ $+$ $6$ $=$ $24$ , but that's incorrect. As above, after it rang 6 times, pause time will end after the 6th ring so some might have thought 23, still incorrect.

Here's a proper solution:

$6 \times 3$ $+$ $($ $6-1$ $)$ $+1$ $=$ $24$

For someone asking why $+1$ on the end. For Watson confirming the time, he needs to listen is there rings after the pause? So after the clock rang 6 times, he must need 1 more second to confirm the time, hence, the answer is 24.

If I did any mistake or you have an improvement write here, This is just a simple example of the answer and the meanings behind it (For the $+1$ actually)

Tick Tock

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