A pilot Is flying an airplane. Due To Strong Winds, The Pilot Decides To Fly 4,000 Feet Lower To Avoid Excessive Turbulence. It Takes The Pilot 3.5 minutes to make this adjustment. Interpret the quotient to describe the rate of change in the plane's altitude. Give your answer in the nearest hundredth, and remember the plane is descending.

Question

A pilot Is flying an airplane. Due To Strong Winds, The Pilot Decides To Fly 4,000 Feet Lower To Avoid Excessive Turbulence. It Takes The Pilot 3.5 minutes to make this adjustment. Interpret the quotient to describe the rate of change in the plane's altitude.  Give your answer in the nearest hundredth, and remember the plane is descending.

GPT 3.5 · Answer

To find the rate of change in the plane's altitude, we can divide the change in altitude by the time it takes to make the adjustment.

The change in altitude is 4,000 feet because the pilot decides to fly 4,000 feet lower.
The time it takes to make the adjustment is 3.5 minutes.

Dividing the change in altitude by the time gives us a quotient of -1142.86 (rounded to the nearest hundredth).

Interpreting this result, the rate of change in the plane's altitude is approximately -1142.86 feet per minute. Since the plane is descending, the negative sign indicates a decrease in altitude.