CSLB Contractor's Law & Business Practice Exam

If two tasks can be performed simultaneously, how long should a job requiring two days for site preparation and one day for clean-up be scheduled if one task lasts seven days and the other lasts ten days?

1. 7 Days

2. 13 Days

3. 15 Days

4. 20 Days

The correct answer is: 13 Days

To determine the correct duration for the job, it’s essential to analyze the tasks involved and their respective timelines. In this scenario, the job includes two main components: site preparation, which takes two days, and clean-up, which takes one day. Since these tasks can be performed simultaneously, we can optimize the schedule to reduce total time. First, while one team works on site preparation for two days, the other team can be getting ready to start the clean-up. As soon as the site preparation is complete after two days, the clean-up can commence and will take an additional one day. This means that the total time taken for the site preparation and clean-up is three days. However, we also have to consider the two larger tasks that are separate from the preparation and clean-up: one task that lasts seven days and another that lasts ten days. Since the jobs involved can overlap timelines, you should take the longer of these two tasks into account, which would be ten days. Therefore, we can schedule the site preparation and clean-up during the overlapping time frame with the longer task, which means you'll have: - The first task of ten days running parallel to the shorter tasks. - The clean-up concludes at the end of the three days.