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Jen left her house and drove to school in the morning, as shown in the accompanying graph. On her drive to school

she realized that she forgot her bookbag and had to return home before driving back to school for a 3-hour class. Explain
what is happening during each part of the graph.

User Tenzin
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1 Answer

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Final answer:

The question involves interpreting a position versus time graph for a round trip drive to school with a return home due to forgetting an item. The graph shows segments of constant positive and negative slopes representing travel away from and towards the origin, and a horizontal line denoting a stationary period.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student is asking about the interpretation of a position versus time graph for a scenario where someone drives from home to school, forgets an item, returns home then goes back to school, and finally attends a class. This involves understanding average velocity, displacement, and the characteristics of motion graphs.

On the first segment of the journey, the driver travels from the origin (home) to school, which is 5 km away, in 10 minutes. Since the drive is at a constant velocity, the graph is a straight line with a positive slope (representing positive velocity), which indicates the car is moving away from the origin.

When the driver realizes the forgotten bookbag and returns home, this would be graphed as a line with a negative slope (representing negative velocity), since the driver is moving back towards the origin. It should take another 10 minutes to return home if the driver maintains the same average velocity.

After picking up the bookbag, the driver heads back to school for a class. This will be represented on the graph by another straight line with a positive slope, parallel to the first segment, indicating a similar constant velocity away from home. The graph would show the car at school for 3 hours, during which the position remains constant, creating a horizontal line on the graph reflecting no change in position over that time period.

Jen left her house and drove to school in the morning, as shown in the accompanying-example-1
User Locknies
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