If 3 women can paint 3 fences in 3 hours, how many hours does it take one woman to paint one fence?

Let me show you in a easy way

 

* is 1 woman

 

= is 1 fence

 

% is 1 hour

 

*    *   *

=   =   =

% % %

 

The label above is 3 woman, 3 fence, 3 hour.

The question is asking for 1 woman only.

So if we look at one vertical line, it will be labeled as 

 

*

=

%

 

which stands for 1 woman painting 1 fence  takes 1 hour.

So the answer is 1 hour

it would take 3 hours assuming that they painted at the same paces. This is because the three women can paint three fences per 3 hours so divide that by 3 and you get 1 fence per 3 hours. It may seem confusing i am not excellent at explanations. Here is another. The women together can paint one fence per hour, this means each woman can paint 1/3 of a fence each hour, which means a woman would need 3 hours to paint it. That explanation was better. Hope this helps.

 

-G

Thanks to the three of you.  :)

I rather like Mathyeah's answer.  :)