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A car starts out at a speed of 50mph. A second car starts out 3 hours later at 65mph to overtake the first one. How many hours will the first car be on the road at the point where it is overtaken?

User Rich Walsh
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1 Answer

21 votes
21 votes

Answer:

13 hours

Explanation:

You want to know the time a car traveling 50 mph has been on the road when a car traveling 65 mph catches up to it, given that the second car started 3 hours later.

Closing time

The first car opens a gap of (50 mi/h)·(3 h) = 150 mi between the cars by the time the second car starts.

The second car closes that gap at the rate of (65 mph -50 mph) = 10 mph.

The time it takes for the second car to overtake the first one is ...

(150 mi)/(15 mi/h) = 10 h

When the second car has been on the road for 10 hours, the first car has been on the road for 13 hours.

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Additional comment

Both cars will have traveled 650 miles when they meet.

(50 mi/h)(13 h) = 650 mi

(65 mi/h)(10 h) = 650 mi

User HumanCEO
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