Question

Abigail was skateboarding home when the wheel axle of her skateboard broke. She had already traveled two thirds of the way home and had to walk the rest of the way. Walking the rest of the way home took her twice as long as it took her to ride her skateboard. How many times faster is Abigail on her skateboard than she is walking?

Answer 1

Abigail was four times faster in the skateboard than when she is walking

Explanation:

Let the total distance to travel be d

distance traveled on skateboard = 2/3 * d = 2d/3

distance walked = 1/3 * d = d/3

So let the time taken to skate be t, then time taken to walk home will be 2t since it is 2 times longer.

Now, the speed on both trips is distance/time

For the snowboard trip, speed is 2d/3/t = 2d/3t

For the walking trip, distance would be;

d/3/2t = d/6t

So let’s compare these two speeds.

Obviously the speed on the skateboard is greater than that walking.

So we can equally divide the speed on the skateboard by that while walking to know how many times faster it is.

Thus, mathematically we have

2d/3t divided by d/6t

So that would be;

2d/3t * 6t/d = 4

So this means she was four times faster on the skateboard