Final answer:
To calculate the overall score for the cross-country team, each member's completion time is converted to minutes and summed, and the total is then divided by the number of team members. The team's average time to complete the course is 131 minutes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question involves calculating the average time that the 5-member cross-country team took to complete a course. To do this, we must first convert all the given times into minutes and then calculate their sum. After adding all the times together, we divide the total by the number of team members (5) to find the average. The times given are:
- 2 hours 17 minutes = 2 × 60 + 17 = 137 minutes
- 2 hours 48 minutes = 2 × 60 + 48 = 168 minutes
- 1 hour 53 minutes = 1 × 60 + 53 = 113 minutes
- 2 hours 19 minutes = 2 × 60 + 19 = 139 minutes
- 1 hour 38 minutes = 1 × 60 + 38 = 98 minutes
The sum of all the times in minutes is:
137 + 168 + 113 + 139 + 98 = 655 minutes.
Now, we find the average time by dividing 655 by 5:
655 ÷ 5 = 131 minutes.
Therefore, the team's overall score, which is the average time taken to complete the course, is 131 minutes.