In class the other day, I was assigned a worksheet with a tricky problem. It asked me to find the average speed a car would have to go, after it had already traveled certain speeds, in order to have a total average of 40 km/h. When I was first trying to solve the problem I though that I needed to average the speeds. I got the answer 60 km/h, but i thought that it didn't seem like enough time. Then I tried to use the average speed equation as=d/t, but that wouldn't help me at all. I was extremely confused until a classmate explained how to solve the problem to me.
When I was trying to solve the problem, I wasn't paying attention to the time the car had to travel, which was only one hour. By the time the car had traveled thirty kilometers, it had already been an hour long. In order for the car to have an average of 40 km/h, the car would have to travel at the speed of light and instantaneously reach its distance goal of 40 km.
I learned to carefully read problems so that I would understand them completely. This tricky problem has helped me to realize that even the smallest details of a problem may be the most important part and that the answer may be in the question itself.
I was definitely in the same situation! I was so confused and approached the problem the exact same way you did! I assumed that I had to calculate the average speed and didn’t notice the importance of time. Once I re-read the question I realized that the car had to travel for an exact hour to reach its goal! I was surprised and a little upset for not realizing this earlier. I learned that I need to read the question more carefully and perhaps even underline the units involved in the question. Doing this easy task allows me to not overlook and hidden variable in the question.
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