You can
put this solution on YOUR website! Driving down a mountain, Tom finds that he has descended 1800 ft
in elevation by the time he is 3.25 mi horizontally away from the top of the
mountain. Find the slope of his descent to the nearest hundredth.
:
First convert miles to feet so we are using the same measurement units:
3.25 * 5280 = 17160 ft
:
One of the definitions of slope is "rise over run" rise/run
In this problem rise = 1800 ft, and run = 17160
:
= .1049 rounded to .10 is the slope
:
That means it rises .1 ft for every ft traveled horizontally
Check: 17160 * .1049 = 1800.084 ~ 1800
