Question

Patricia is climbing up a large number of steps and to encourage her on her way,her friend started counting the number of steps she completes every minute.From then on,she keep a regular pace.After 2 minutes,she climbed 56 steps in total and after 8 minutes she has climbed 158 steps in total.

a)Calculate the number of steps she climbed before her friend started counting

b)Calculate the number of steps she had climbed before her friend started counting.If she had not maintained a regular pace,would you still have been able to use this method?

Answer 1

a) In two minutes, Patricia has climbed 56 steps. From this moment until 8 minutes she had climbed at a regular pace ((158-56)/6) or 102/6 equivalent to 17 steps per minute. Since the first two minutes is at regular pace also, the a) number of steps she climbed before her friend started counting is 56-2(17)=56-34 =22 steps

b) No. we cannot possibly calculate the number of steps she had climbed before her friend started counting. If she had not maintained a regular pace because there will be no basis that is constant or fixed (the number of steps). There is no given time frame also.