Problem:
Samia set off on her bicycle to visit her friend, traveling at an average speed of 17 kilometers per hour. When she had gone half the distance to her friend's house, a tire went flat, and she walked the rest of the way at 5 kilometers per hour. In all it took her 44 minutes to reach her friend's house. In kilometers rounded to the nearest tenth, how far did Samia walk?
Answer Choices:
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Solution:
Let be the distance in kilometers to the friend's house. Then Samia bicycled distance at rate 17 and walked distance at rate 5 , for a total time of
hours. Solving this equation yields Therefore Samia walked about kilometers.
The problems on this page are the property of the MAA's American Mathematics Competitions