If the lake is 60 miles away, and Rene is driving at 40 miles per hour the entire time, how long will it take her to get to the lake?

Question

need help with solving this word problem

Answer 1

 

If you need to write it out mathematically - use units

 

40 miles/hour * x (hours) = 60 miles

 

divide both sides by 40 miles/hour

 

x hours  =  60 miles / 40 miles/hour  (miles cancel - left with hours0

              = 1.5 hours

 

 

Answer 2

The way to approach problems like this is to divide the distance by the speed of travel. Let's think about it. If the speed is 40 miles per hour, it means Rene can travel 40 miles in one hour. Now Rene needs to travel 60 miles. That is 20 miles (half) more than what she can travel in 1 hour. So she has to travel for an additional half an hour, for a total of 1.5 hour.

 

Here is the math: 60 ÷ 40 = 1.5

 

Hope this helps,

 

A.Z. R