Question

On the return trip from the beach, you pedal hard for the first ten minutes and cover 4 miles. Tired, you slow down and cover the last 6 miles in 36 minutes. What is your average speed for the return trip?

Answer 1

Explanation:

On the return trip from the beach, you pedal hard for the first ten minutes and cover 4 miles.

Speed = distance covered/time taken

This means that your speed for the first 4 miles would be

4/10 = 0.4 miles per minute

Tired, you slow down and cover the last 6 miles in 36 minutes. This means that your speed for the last 6 miles would be

6/36 = 0.17 miles per minute

Therefore, your average speed for the return trip would be

(0.4 + 0.17)/2

= 0.285 miles per minute