Peter traveled from home to school and returned along the

This topic has expert replies
Moderator
Posts: 2246
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:08 pm
Followed by:2 members

Timer

00:00

Your Answer

A

B

C

D

E

Global Stats

Peter traveled from home to school and returned along the same route in the evening at a speed of 6 mph. What was Peters average speed for the two way trip?

1) Peters average speed is 0.8 mph greater than his speed from home to school.
2) Peter traveled from home to school at 4 mph.

The OA is D.

I'm not sure about this question, I tried to solve it as follows

Avg. speed = total distance/ total time
Let speed from home to school = v, and distance from home to school = x
total distance = x + x = 2x
and total time = x/v + x/6
thus avg. speed = 2x/(x/v + x/6)
= 2/ ( 1/v + 1/6)
= 12v/6+v (1)

statement 1,
avg. speed = v+0.8
Now substitute the value of avg. speed = v+0.8, we have
v+0.8 = 12v/v+6
Solving this we have;
v^2 - 5.2v + 4.8 =0
(v-1.2)(v-4) =0
v= 1.2 or v = 4.
Since here two values of v are possible, (so correspondingly we will have two different values of average speed 2 and 4.8) hence st.1 alone is not sufficient

statement 2,
Here v = 4, we will simply substitute this value in equation 1 and will get avg. speed = 4.8 as our answer.

Hence answer should be B but the OA is different.

Please, can someone help? Thanks!

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 3008
Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2016 6:19 am
Location: Grand Central / New York
Thanked: 470 times
Followed by:34 members

by Jay@ManhattanReview » Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:29 pm

Timer

00:00

Your Answer

A

B

C

D

E

Global Stats

AAPL wrote:Peter traveled from home to school and returned along the same route in the evening at a speed of 6 mph. What was Peters average speed for the two way trip?

1) Peters average speed is 0.8 mph greater than his speed from home to school.
2) Peter traveled from home to school at 4 mph.

The OA is D.

I'm not sure about this question, I tried to solve it as follows

Avg. speed = total distance/ total time
Let speed from home to school = v, and distance from home to school = x
total distance = x + x = 2x
and total time = x/v + x/6
thus avg. speed = 2x/(x/v + x/6)
= 2/ ( 1/v + 1/6)
= 12v/6+v (1)

statement 1,
avg. speed = v+0.8
Now substitute the value of avg. speed = v+0.8, we have
v+0.8 = 12v/v+6
Solving this we have;
v^2 - 5.2v + 4.8 =0
(v-1.2)(v-4) =0
v= 1.2 or v = 4.
Since here two values of v are possible, (so correspondingly we will have two different values of average speed 2 and 4.8) hence st.1 alone is not sufficient

statement 2,
Here v = 4, we will simply substitute this value in equation 1 and will get avg. speed = 4.8 as our answer.

Hence answer should be B but the OA is different.

Please, can someone help? Thanks!
Your solution is perfect. The correct answer should be B.

-Jay
_________________
Manhattan Review GMAT Prep

Locations: Manhattan Review India | Manhattan Review Hyderabad | Madhapur GMAT Courses | Dilsukhnagar GRE Prep | and many more...

Schedule your free consultation with an experienced GMAT Prep Advisor! Click here.