plane flies along

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plane flies along

by sanju09 » Fri Mar 05, 2010 6:29 am
A plane flies along the four sides of a square ground at speeds of 100, 200, 300, and 400. What is plane's average speed in the whole trip?
(A) 250
(B) 192
(C) 150
(D) 124
(E) 108
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by yeahdisk » Fri Mar 05, 2010 6:43 am
for a square of side 1

Time taken = [spoiler]1/100 + 1/200 + 1/300 + 1/400 = 25/1200[/spoiler]

Distance = 4

Average speed = [spoiler]4 / (25/1200) = 4800/25 = 192[/spoiler]

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by bpgen » Fri Mar 05, 2010 7:51 am
Absolutely right, we should not just do the Arithmetic(mean) of all those speeds.
We need to find out time spent during each different speeds and then divide total distance by total time.
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