Question

The average speed, s, in miles per hour that a student walks the 3 miles from home to school varies inversely as the number of hours, h that the student walks.The formula is given by s = 3/hAs the number of hours it takes the student to walk from home to school increases, what happens to the speed?

Answer 1

$\begin{gathered} \text{The given formula is} \\ \\ s\text{ =}\frac{3}{h} \\ \text{Because there is an inverse relationship betwe}en\text{ the distance walked and the time} \end{gathered}$

If the number of hours it takes the student to walk home increases, then the speed decreases

Let us see an example

if h = 1

and we increase h to be = 3

$\begin{gathered} \text{when h =1} \\ \text{The sp}eed,\text{ s =}\frac{3}{1}=3milesperhour \end{gathered}$$\begin{gathered} \text{When h increases to 3} \\ s\text{ =}\frac{3}{3}=1mileper\text{ hour} \end{gathered}$

3miles/hour is more than 1 mile/hour so hence the speed will decrease when the time increases

The answer is option A, the speed decreases