Real-Life Math
Math skills are an important element in a court reporter's job. "We have to be as accurate as possible," says court reporter Lance Beard.
You're a freelance court reporter with a very busy schedule this month. In fact, you'll be lucky to have any time to yourself.
Just as you're pondering your lack of free time for the coming week, you get a call from a local law firm. They have a series of meetings on audio tapes they need transcribed by the following week. They're offering you a pretty fat paycheck to get the job done by Monday.
The manager tells you the tapes are of 3 staff meetings. He estimates each tape is approximately 90 minutes in length.
Your approach to this would be to use computer-aided transcription, meaning that as you enter the stenographic symbols, a computer transcribes these symbols into English. You're prepared to sacrifice the free time you have left this week for this project. After all, it's going to pay really well!
Assuming the words contained on these tapes are spoken at an average rate of 250 words per minute (w.p.m.) and you can reliably enter 225 w.p.m., you need to determine how long it will take you to transcribe these tapes. You also need to allow 20 minutes per tape to proofread the computer transcript.
Taking all this into account, how long will this project take you to complete?