Today’s SAT question of the day is a medium-difficulty math question that involves some basic algebra…and multiplying by 4.  (I’ll wait while you get your calculator for that last part … ….)

We are told that there are two machines: X and Y.

Machine X works at a rate of X bolts per hour.

Machine Y works at a rate of X + 6 bolts per hour.

They want to know how many bolts are produced, total, in four hours.  So, first, we have to figure out how many bolts are produced in one hour.

This first step goes back to the very first time you saw a word problem, probably something about Sally having 4 apples and John having 2, so together they had 6 apples.  In this problem, Machine X has X bolts in one hour and Machine Y has X + 6 bolts in one hour, so together they have:

X + X + 6, which is the same as 2X + 6 bolts in one hour.

For four hours, we have to multiply that whole expression by 4:

4(2X + 6) = 8X + 24

My time for this question: 20 seconds without writing anything down.  Did you beat that, with or without pencil and paper?

Possible missteps to avoid:

• Failing to multiply both terms by 4
• Trying to multiply X and X + 6 together for some unknown reason (luckily there are no answers that contain X^2)

This is the type of problem that would probably appear in the middle of the math section, so remember not to overcomplicate things!  The test really is that easy.