Question

The students in Mrs. Willow's reading class are all reading the same novel independently. Four students create a graph of their reading rates, in words per minute, as shown below.

Which student reads the fastest?

Answer 1

Sarah.

Explanation:

Do not be fooled by how sharp the incline is, all of these graphs are labeled at different increments on both the x and y axes.

We will now solve this problem by figuring out each student's words per minute by dividing their words read (y-axis) by their time (x-axis).

Since the graphs are all linear, meaning they are constant and will never change. No matter what point we use on either graph we will come to the same words per minute for that student. For the sake of this explanation I will use the last point on each graph.

Charlie: Charlie read 1,750 words in 10 minutes, meaning he read at 175 words per minute. 1,750 / 10 = 175

Riley: Riley read 10,000 words in 50 minutes, meaning she read at 200 words per minute. 10,000 / 50 = 200

Sarah: Sarah read 1,300 words in 6 minutes, meaning she read at 216.67 words per minute. 1,300 / 6 = 216.67

Mason: Mason read 1,000 words in 5 minutes, meaning he read at 200 words per minute. 1,000 / 5 = 200

In conclusion, Sarah reads the fastest at 216.67 words per minute!