Carcass wrote:
Alex drives to and from work each day along the same route. If he drives at a speed of 80 miles per hour on the way to work and he drives at a speed of 100 miles per hour on the way from work, which of the following most closely approximates his average speed in miles per hour for the round trip?
A. 80.0
B. 88.9
C. 90.0
D. 91.1
E. 100.0
Let's assign a "nice" value to the distance Alex drives each way.
By "nice" I mean a value that works well with 80 mph and 100 mph
So, let's say the distance from home to work =
400 miles
Average speed = (TOTAL distance traveled)/(TOTAL travel time)
TOTAL distance traveled =
400 +
400 = 800 miles
TOTAL travel time = (travel time from home to work) + (travel time from work to home)
travel time = distance/speedTOTAL travel time = (
400/80) + (
400/100)
= 5 + 4
= 9 hours
So, AVERAGE speed = 800/9
≈ 88.9
Answer: B
Cheers,
Brent