Final answer:
Jake can swim 3/4 of a lap in one minute, and thus can swim 9/4 or 2 1/4 laps in 3 minutes. Since 2 1/4 is not a whole lap, the closest whole number of laps he can complete is 2.
Step-by-step explanation:
Jake can swim 1/4 of a lap in 1/3 of a minute. To find out how many laps he can swim in 3 minutes, we can set up a proportion.
First, find out how many laps he can swim in 1 minute. Since it takes him 1/3 of a minute to swim 1/4 of a lap, in one minute he can swim three times that amount (because 1 minute is 3 times 1/3 minute). Therefore, in one minute, he can swim 3 * 1/4 = 3/4 of a lap.
Now, since we want to know how many laps he can swim in 3 minutes, we multiply the number of laps he can swim in one minute by 3:
1. (3/4 laps/min) * 3 min = 9/4 laps
Therefore, Jake can swim 9/4 laps, which can be simplified to 2 1/4 laps in 3 minutes. Looking at the multiple-choice answers provided, the closest whole number of laps Jake can swim in 3 minutes would be 2 laps (Option A), since he can't swim a fraction of a lap in a real scenario.