April drove at an average speed of 40 mi/h from her home in Nashville to visit her sister in Salt Lake City

Question

April drove at an average speed of 40 mi/h from her home in Nashville to visit her sister in Salt Lake City. She stayed in Salt Lake City 25 hours, and on the trip back averaged 40 mi/h. She returned home 46 hours after leaving. How many miles is Nashville from Salt Lake City?

a) Write an equation using the information as it is given above that can be solved to answer this question. Use t as your varible to represent the amount of time April spent driving from Nashville to Salt Lake City.
Equation:

b) How many miles is Nashville from Salt Lake City?
Answer: miles

Give your answer to the nearest mile

Answer 1

Treena,

You are given that April returned home 46 hours after leaving, but she was in Salt Lake City for 25 hours (which is time that she wasn't driving. So we must first figure out our time (t):

46-25=t

21=t

Now that we know April has been driving for 21 hours, we can complete the problem. The basic formula that you need for this problem is d=rt, which translates to distance equals rate multiplied by time:

d=rt

d=(40 mi/h)*(21 h)

d= 840 mi (since the measurement of hours appears in both the numerator and denominator, they cancel)