SOLUTION: I am stuck on how to solve this problem: "I travel from town A to town B, a distance of two miles, at a rate of 30mph. At what speed should I make the return trip so that my avera

Question 373648: I am stuck on how to solve this problem:
"I travel from town A to town B, a distance of two miles, at a rate of 30mph. At what speed should I make the return trip so that my average speed for the round trip is 60mph? The answer is NOT 90mph."
How would I go about solving this problem?
Answer by josmiceli(19441) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
What they are trying to teach you is
that an average is never an average of
2 or more averages or a sum of averages. Always go back
to the basic definition of an average. In this case:
(average speed) = (total distance travelled)/(total time elapsed)
The total distance is mi
The time for the trip from A to B is hr
Let = the total time

hr
This tells me that the return tip has to be made in hrs,
and that says that there is no way to average mi/hr
for the round trip.
Suppose the car was a rocket car and could make the return trip
in hr
Now I say that the average speed for the round trip is mi/hr

There's no way to average mi/hr
no matter how fast you make the return trip

RELATED QUESTIONS
To whom may it concern, I couldn't solve this problem. Please help. Question... (answered by venugopalramana)

The distance between Town A and Town B is 45 Kilometers. If a train travels at a speed... (answered by Alan3354)

Carla take a trip from town A to town B. She drives to town B at a rate of 55 miles per... (answered by ankor@dixie-net.com)

the distance from town A to town B is 18 miles. Luke starts his journey from town A and... (answered by macston)

Can someone help me understand how to answer this problem. I think the answer is 50.4... (answered by checkley71,ankor@dixie-net.com)

I have word problems using d=r*t. I need help with putting the numbers and variables in... (answered by Edwin McCravy)

The distance between Town A and Town B is 213 miles. Ralph drove at an average speed of... (answered by Alan3354)

A car can drive from town A to town B at a certain rate of speed in 5 hours. A second car (answered by lwsshak3)

(((A cyclist traveled at a rate of 32 MPH to visit a nearby town. The cyclist averaged... (answered by stanbon)