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11 votes
11 votes
Jenny drove home from college traveling an average speed of 66 mph and drove back to the college

the following week at an average speed of 63 mph. If the total round trip took 9 hours, how much
time did it take Jenny to drive from home back to college? Express the time in hours and minutes.
Round to the nearest minute.

User Sofahamster
by
3.1k points

1 Answer

20 votes
20 votes

Answer: 4 hours, 36 minutes

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Step-by-step explanation:

x = number of hours spent going from college to home

9-x = number of hours spent going from home to college

Those two expressions add to 9 hours total.

Jenny travels for x hours at 66 mph. Her distance is 66x.

Recall that distance = rate*time, where "rate" is another term for "speed".

When returning back to college, she travels 9-x hours at 63 mph

Her distance is d = r*t = 63(9-x) = 567 - 63x

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When driving home, she travels 66x miles

When going back to college, she travels 567-63x miles

Assume she takes the same exact roads on either part of the round trip. If so, then those two distance expressions are equal.

Solve for x.

66x = 567 - 63x

66x + 63x = 567

129x = 567

x = 567/129

x = 4.3953488372093

x = 4.39535

That is the approximate number of hours spent going from the college to her home

So 9 - x = 9 - 4.39535 = 4.60465 is the approximate number of hours spent driving from her home going back to college.

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Let's rewrite that in hours,minutes format

We have 4 full hours plus an additional 0.60465 of an hour

Multiply this decimal by 60 to convert to minutes

60*0.60465 = 36.279

That rounds to about 36 minutes.

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The 4.60465 hours is about the same as 4 hours, 36 minutes when rounding to the nearest minute.

User Vvlevchenko
by
2.8k points
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