Speed/distance question

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Speed/distance question

by sam77 » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:48 pm
A question from Kaplan Premier 2008 book -
Tom reads at an average rate of 30 pages per hour, while Jan reads at an average rate of 40 pages per hour. If Tom starts reading at 4:30 and Jan begins reading an identical copy at 5:20, what time will they be reading the same page?
A) 9:30
B) 9:00
C) 8:40
D) 7:50
E) 7:00

Is their a formula or method to do these kind of questions?

The correct answer is D
Last edited by sam77 on Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by cramya » Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:20 pm
Lets use the standard

distance = rate * time

Let time for Jan be t
Time for Tom t+5/6 (reads 50 minutes more 50/60 = 5/6 hrs)

Jan's rate 40
Tom's rate 30

We know the distance which correspomds to page number they have to read at some time t is the same for both

So

30(t+5/6) = 40t
t = 2.5

Since we took Jan's time as t add 2.5 hours to 5:20 we get 7:50

D)