Find the average speed of each person from the given table and compare the results.
Susana, see solution.
Practice makes perfect
We are given the following table.
Name
Event
Time (s)
Tawni
50-m Freestyle
40.8
Pepita
100-m Butterfly
60.2
Susana
200-m Medley
112.4
We want to determine who swam the fastest. Let's find the average speed of each person from the table. We will find how many meters per second each person swam. Let's start with Tawni. We know that she swam 50 meters in 40.8 seconds. We can write a rate to show this situation.
50 m/40.8sRecall that a unit rate is a rate that has been reduced to a denominator of 1 unit. In this case, the unit rate is the number of meters per 1 second. Let's find the unit rate! For simplicity, we can temporarily ignore the units.
Finally, we got the unit rate.
50 m/40.8s ≈ 1.23 m/1s
As we can see, Tawni's average speed is about 1.23 meters per second. We can find Pepita's and Susana's speeds by following the same steps.
Name
Event
Time (s)
Rate
Unit Rate
Tawni
50-m Freestyle
40.8
50m/40.8s
50m ÷ 40.8/40.8s ÷ 40.8 ≈ 1.23m/1s
Pepita
100-m Butterfly
60.2
100m/60.2s
100m ÷ 60.2/60.2s ÷ 60.2 ≈ 1.66m/1s
Susana
200-m Medley
112.4
200m/112.4s
200m ÷ 112.4/112.4s ÷ 112.4 ≈ 1.78m/1s
As we know, the unit rate is the number of meters per second swum by each person from the table.
Name
Unit Rate
Average Speed
Tawni
≈ 1.23m/1sec
≈ 1.23 meters per second
Pepita
≈ 1.66m/1sec
≈ 1.66 meters per second
Susana
≈ 1.78m/1sec
≈ 1.78 meters per second
We can see that Susana has the greatest average speed. This means that she swam the fastest!
