Juanelda's doctor has prescribed medication that she must take every 5 hours. she started the medication at 10AM on Thursday. What is the first day on which she will take her medication at noon? Write an equation that will provide this answer.
There are 24 hours in 1 day. We notice that this is just 1 hour short of 5
5-hour periods (25 hours) between her doses. That means that each dose will
be taken 1 hour later each day than it was on the day before. Therefore it
will take two days for the dosage time at 10AM to move up two hours till noon.
So therefore her first medication at noon will be 2 days later, or Saturday.
As far as an equation is concerned, I say 'who needs one?' But since you are
supposed to come up with an equation for it, here goes:
Let x be the number of days it takes. Since the dosage time moves up 1
hour/day, and we need to move up 2 hours from 10AM to 12 noon, then
x days times 1 hour/day equals 2. So the equation is
(x da)(1 h/da) = 2 h
1x = 2
x = 2
That's a very simple equation, but it is correct. Your teacher
surely must have had a more complicated way to do it in mind that
would require a more complicated equation than that "baby-simple"
equation. For surely he or she wouldn't have even bothered to ask
you for an equation that simple. But this is certainly the
easiest one.
The dosage times all have to move up one hour each day because five
5-hour periods (25 hours) between doses is 1 hour more than
24 hours.
Comment:
Of course you can check it by doing it the long, long way by
writing down all the dosage times until you get to a dosage at
noon:
Dosage no. Hour Day
1 10AM Thur.
2 3PM Thur.
3 8PM Thur.
4 1AM Fri.
5 6AM Fri.
6 11AM Fri.
7 4PM Fri.
8 9PM Fri.
9 2AM Sat.
10 7AM Sat.
11 12noon Sat.
Let me know if your teacher had a more complicated
equation in mind than simply (x times 1) = 2. Notice
that dosage #6 on Friday at 11AM is 1 hour later
than dosage #1 on Thursday at 10AM, and dosage #11 on
Saturday is 1 hour later than 11AM on Friday, or
noon.
Edwin
