Question

The track team is trying to reduce their time for a relay race. First they reduce their time by 1.2 minutes. Then they are able to reduce that time by 1/10. If their final time is 3.60 minutes, what was their beginning time?

Answer 1

5.2 Minutes, or 5 minutes and 12 seconds

Explanation:

You can solve this problem by working backward. Since our number gets smaller by a 1/10 or 0.1, in order to work backward we must multiply 3.60 by 10/9, since one tenth has been taken away already. When we do this, we get 4.0. When we add 1.2 minutes to that, we get a final answer of 5.2 minutes, or 5 minutes and 12 seconds.