2014 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 17
Problem
George walks mile to school. He leaves home at the same time each day, walks at a steady speed of
miles per hour, and arrives just as school begins. Today he was distracted by the pleasant weather and walked the first
mile at a speed of only
miles per hour. At how many miles per hour must George run the last
mile in order to arrive just as school begins today?
Solution 1
Note that on a normal day, it takes him hour to get to school. However, today it took
hour to walk the first
mile. That means that he has
hours left to get to school, and
mile left to go. Therefore, his speed must be
, so
is the answer.
Solution 2
Using the harmonic mean formula, and making the speed he needs to take to get to school for the last half , we can make the expression:
Which simplifies to:
Then, because we know that since he goes at mph on a normal day, we can say that it is the harmonic mean of the two rates he goes at today, so we add that to our expression and turn it into something familiar:
Solving that equation gives us:
Solution 3
See Also
2014 AMC 8 (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 16 |
Followed by Problem 18 | |
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