Find the unit rate — the average travel speed — for each day of the Jimenez family's road trip.
G
Practice makes perfect
We want to determine which day the Jimenez family averaged the greatest miles per hour. Let's start by summarizing all the information from the exercise in a table.
Day
Distance
Time
Sunday
300 miles
5 hours
Monday
200 miles
3 hours
Tuesday
150 miles
2.5 hours
Wednesday
250 miles
6 hours
We will find the average speed of the Jimenez family on each day. Let's start with Sunday. We know that on Sunday, the family traveled 300 miles in 5 hours. We can write a rate to show this situation.
300 m/5hRecall 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 miles per hour traveled by the family, which is their average speed. Let's find the unit rate! We can keep things simple by ignoring the units for now.
We found the unit rate!
300 mi/5h = 60 mi/1h
As we can see, the family drove at an average speed of 60 miles per hour on Sunday. We can find the unit rate for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday by following the same steps.
Day
Distance
Time
Rate
Unit Rate
Sunday
300 miles
5 hours
300mi/5h
300mi ÷ 5/5h ÷ 5 = 60mi/1h
Monday
200 miles
3 hours
200mi/3h
200mi ÷ 3/3h ÷ 3 ≈ 66.7mi/1h
Tuesday
150 miles
2.5 hours
150mi/2.5h
150mi ÷ 2.5/2.5h ÷ 2.5 = 60mi/1h
Wednesday
250 miles
6 hours
250mi/6h
250mi ÷ 6/6h ÷ 6≈ 41.7mi/1h
Remember, the unit rate is the speed that the family traveled in miles per hour.
Day
Unit Rate
Average Speed
Sunday
60mi/1h
60 miles per hour
Monday
≈ 66.7mi/1h
≈ 66.7 miles per hour
Tuesday
60mi/1h
60 miles per hour
Wednesday
≈ 41.7mi/1h
≈ 66.7 miles per hour
We can see that the Jimenez family had the greatest average speed on Monday. This means that the correct answer is G.
