Rachel I. answered • 09/18/22
Former Professor Helping Students Build Math Skills & Confidence
This problem can be reasoned out with a little clever thinking. Evelyn is traveling twice as fast as Ross, or you could say that Ross takes twice as long to go the same distance as Evelyn. For example, if Evelyn travels for 2 hours, she will go 60mph * 2 hrs = 120 miles, but it would take Ross, twice as long since he is traveling slower, 30mph * 4hrs = 120 miles. In other words, it took Ross an extra 2 hours to meet up with Evelyn.
Using this reasoning and knowing that Ross actually took an extra 50 minutes to meet Evelyn, you can work out how long Evelyn's trip was. Once you have her trip time, you can use the distance = speed * time formula to work out the distance travelled. Just be careful of units! The speed is given in miles per HOUR but the time is given in MINUTES.
