INDIVIDUAL QUANTITATIVE LITERACY 7 Running Head: INDIVIDUAL QUANTITATIVE LITERACY

Running Head: INDIVIDUAL QUANTITATIVE LITERACY
1
Individual Quantitative Literacy Case Study
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Institution
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INDIVIDUAL QUANTITATIVE LITERACY 2
Individual Quantitative Literacy Case Study
There are many questions in physics and engineering that require a fast and rough
estimate of the answer. This is because they are either impossible to measure or difficulty to give
an exact answer. Such questions are known as Fermi questions (Cheuk et al., 2016, p.1267).
They include estimates such as the volume of water in a certain ocean, the number of people in a
given country or the number of cars in a given city (Niss, 2018, p.357-369). Answers to such
questions would be estimates which are hopefully accurate and given within a certain margin
(Akgül et al., 2017, p.1438). Such questions enhance critical thinking and students are able to
demonstrate their numeracy skills on analysis, inference and interpretation. They also
demonstrate their skill in explaining and evaluating their ideas as well as reflecting on their
process of reasoning (Parand et al., 2017, p.77). These questions can best be explained by an
example like in the following case study.
Business 1
Data Set
Working hours 8 hours
Number of employees 12
Charges $40 for hand washing $10 for
vacuumed washing
Time 20 minutes for hand washing
10 minutes for vacuumed washing
In the case example the owner has two businesses, to be specific, a car wash and a van
business that operates adjacent to the first business. From the explanations from the case study a
lot of numeric data can be derived from it.

INDIVIDUAL QUANTITATIVE LITERACY 3
Calculate the maximum gross revenue of the business operating all bays continuously in a
48 hour period.
The car wash has four hand wash bays and two vacuum bays. It will then operate for 48
hours which is equivalent to two days. Since the bays will operate continuously they will then
operate for a period of (48 * 60) which is equivalent to 2,880 minutes. Although there are 12
employees in the car wash, they are distributes equally among the six bays. This means that there
will be an average of two employees in every bay (12/6). It is also said that each hand wash takes
10 minutes to wash a car which means that, within the given period of 48 hours each hand bay
will service (2,880/20), 144 cars. But there are four hand wash bays each with two employees
hence in reality 1,152 cars will be serviced within that period.
On the other hand it takes 10 minutes to wash a car in the vacuumed bay. This means
that within the given period of 48 hours, still 1,152 cars will be serviced. Since the car wash
charges $40 for hand washing, the revenue from the four bays will be $46,080 (1152* 40). The
car wash then charges $10 in the vacuumed bays hence the revenue will be $11,520. The gross
revenue from all the bays will then be $57,600.
Calculate the maximum gross revenue of the business operating with employee breaks
included and all bays active only 75% of the 48 hour period.
At this time the bays will be operating at 75% of the 48 hour period which is equivalent
to 36 hours. Since each employee is entitled to a 1 hour break in every 8 hours, then they have
about 4 hours to rest assuming that they only break after the 8 hour period is over. This means
that each employee will work for approximately 32 hours which is equivalent to 1920 minutes
(32*60). This means that each bay will be able to service only 96 vehicles for the hand washing
bays and 192 for the vacuumed ones. This will be the case if each bay is operated by one
employee, but since we have 12 employees, two of them will be working in each bay. Owing to
this fact, each hand washing bay will then be able to service 192 cars (96*2). On the other hand