Question

Point A is located at –24 and point C is located at 36 on the number line below.

Which value would represent point B, halfway between point A and point C?

Answer 1

If I’m right point B would represent 5.

Answer 2

Please check the explanation.

Explanation:

A number line is a horizontal line with negative values on the left-hand side of an arbitrary number 0 and positive values on the right-hand side of 0.

The location of point A on a number line = -24

The location of point C on a number line = 36

The distance between -24 and 36 can be simply calculated by counting the number of units between.

Starting from -24, we would need to move 24 units on the right side to reach the 0 and 36 units right to reach 36.

So, the total units will be: 24+36 = 60

A second simple method to calculate the distance between point A and point C is:

Distance between A and C = location of C - location of A

= 36 - (-24)

= 36+24

= 60 units

Thus, the distance between A and C is 60 units.

Now, point B is located halfway between point A and point C.

Thus,

• The point B must be 30 units before (30 units on the left side) of the point C.

• In other words, point B must be 30 units after (30 units on the right side) of point A.

i.e.

The location of point B = The location of point C - 30

= 36 - 30

= 6

Thus, point B is located at 6.

Verification:

The location of point B = The location of point A + 30

= -24 + 30

= 6

Thus, point B is located at 6.

Thus, it is verified that point B, halfway between point A and point C.

Hence,

'6' is the value of point B halfway between point A and point C.