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A boat travels due east for 3 kilometers, makes a right turn
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13 Sep 2020, 08:32
13 Sep 2020, 08:32
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Question Stats:
90% (01:05) correct
9% (03:05) wrong based on 11 sessions
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A boat travels due east for 3 kilometers, makes a right turn and heads due south for 12 kilometers, and finally makes a left turn and travels due east again for 6 more kilometers. What is the length, in km, of the shortest distance between the boat’s starting and ending locations?
Show: :: OA
15
Re: A boat travels due east for 3 kilometers, makes a right turn
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13 Sep 2020, 17:59
13 Sep 2020, 17:59
1
The boat effectively travels a total of 9 km east and 12 km south. These make the legs of a right triangle. Recognizing them to be multiples of 3 and 4, we know the hypoteneuse is a multiple of 5, so we multiply 5 by the same factor (3) and get the result 15.
Carcass wrote:
A boat travels due east for 3 kilometers, makes a right turn and heads due south for 12 kilometers, and finally makes a left turn and travels due east again for 6 more kilometers. What is the length, in km, of the shortest distance between the boat’s starting and ending locations?
Show: :: OA
15
How I found it
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16 Sep 2020, 10:20
16 Sep 2020, 10:20
1
I noticed that he only traveled south once, so it'll always be 12km in that direction. He traveled east twice so you add them up for a cumulative value of 9km. Notice how you can use a^2+b^2=c^2 where C is the shortest path you can take. add up the values of 81 and 144 to get 225 and the square root of that is 15. cheers 
