No No No NO NO This is not a "trick" question. This is common sense. We are not this stupid as a species to consider this a "trick" question.
What about fatigue on the part of both the blade and the sawer. I'll say 24 minutes to account for those factors.
<br> It's only poorly worded because it says "saw a board into two pieces" If it said "saw two pieces off of a board" the answer would be 15 without a doubt. We have to assume that the time being measured is that of each cut. And since it takes a total of 2 boards at minimum to yield 4 pieces (we have to assume the boards are equal length) then it has to be 20 minutes. The time it takes to achieve 4 pieces in this case is the same since one board has to be cut in half. If instead the problem simply stated that there was one long board and two pieces were sawed off in 10 minutes then one could assume that it takes 5 minutes per cut. Therefore it could be determined that 15 minutes would be required to cut off 3 pieces.
<br> Yeah you're right. If we're cutting the same piece of wood it takes 20 minutes to get 3 pieces. 30 to get 4, etc... <br> But if we had two boards I could get 4 pieces in 20 mins
