Determining times for a skiing event.

Question

You are skier A, the first skier in a skiing event with three other skiers. Compared to your time, skier B is slower, by a time of +00:28. Skier C has a time of +02:13, and skier D has a time of -01:24. Since all times are compared to yours, what is your time?

Answer 1

Marnie, this is a tricky one, but it deals with logic.  There are 4 skiers, right?  When the official times are posted, they are all compared to the winner, who doesn't have a time.  

 

Let's take a race with three skiers. If Fred is 2 minutes and 3 seconds slower than John and Adam is 5 minutes and 4 seconds slower than John, then the results would be listed as such:

 

1. John Smilth

2. Fred Jones          +2:03

3. Adam Williams    +5:04

 

The plus is for a slower time, since you'd have to add 2 minutes and 3 seconds John's time to get Fred's time.  

 

If we compare John's time to Adam, however, John's time is -5:04, because you have to subtract 5 minutes and 4 seconds from Adam's time to get John's time.

 

Let's go one step further and compare John and Adam's times to Fred.  Then John's time is -2:03, but Adam's time becomes +2:59.

 

Remember that your question is saying that times are compared to yours!  Hope this helps.