James left home at 9:40 a.m. and returned at 12:15 p.m. How long was he gone?

Question

Please show how you reached your answer.

Answer 1

You can start by figuring our the amount of hours he was gone first. Since 9:40am is closer to 10:00am I am going to start counting there.

 

10:00am - 11:00am is 1 hour

11:00am - 12:00pm is 2 hours.

 

We are now close to our answer.  Lets look at minutes now.

 

9:40am - 10:00am is 20 minutes

 

and

 

12:00pm - 12:15pm is 15 minutes

 

Add the minutes and hours together

 

2 hours + 20 minutes + 15 minutes = 2 hours and 35 minutes