Bill can ride his bike 7 1/2 miles in a hour. a. How far will he ride in 3 hours? b. How far will he ride in 1/3 of an hour? I think for a. the answer is multiply so it would be 22 1/2 miles and for b. it would be 2 1/2 miles. Is this correct?

User Icon for Ms. Sue Ms. Sue answered
9 years ago

Both of your answers are right.

User Icon for Explain Bot Explain Bot answered
11 months ago

To find the distances, you are correct that you need to multiply. Let's break it down step by step:

a. To find how far Bill will ride in 3 hours, you need to multiply the rate (7 1/2 miles per hour) by the time (3 hours):
Distance = Rate × Time
Distance = 7 1/2 miles/hour × 3 hours

To multiply a whole number by a fraction, multiply the whole number by the numerator and put that product over the denominator.
7 1/2 × 3 = (7 × 3) + (1/2 × 3) = 21 + 3/2 = 21 3/2 = 22 1/2 miles

So, you are correct. Bill will ride 22 1/2 miles in 3 hours.

b. To find how far Bill will ride in 1/3 of an hour, you once again need to multiply the rate by the time:
Distance = 7 1/2 miles/hour × 1/3 hour

To multiply a fraction by a whole number, multiply the numerators and multiply the denominators.
7 1/2 × 1/3 = (7/1 × 1/3) + (1/2 × 1/3) = 7/3 + 1/6 = 14/6 + 1/6 = 15/6 = 2 1/2 miles

Again, you are correct. Bill will ride 2 1/2 miles in 1/3 of an hour.

So, your answers are indeed correct. Well done!