Question

A high school track team's long jump record is 21 feet

2 inches. This year, Tim's best long jump is
20 feet 9, inches. If long jumps are measured to the nearest quarter inch, how much farther must Tim jump to break the record?

Answer 1

Explanation:

Convert feet and inches to total inches for both record and Tim's jump:



Record jump: 21 feet * 12 inches/foot + 2 inches = 254 inches

Tim's jump: 20 feet * 12 inches/foot + 9 inches = 249 inches

Calculate the difference in inches:



Difference = Record jump - Tim's jump = 254 inches - 249 inches = 5 inches

Since jumps are measured to the nearest quarter inch, round the difference to the nearest quarter inch:

5 inches is exactly 20 quarter inches. Since 20 is a multiple of 4 (the number of quarter inches in an inch), rounding up or down won't change the result. Therefore, the difference remains 5 inches.



Therefore, Tim needs to jump 5 inches farther to break the record.