SOLUTION: Steve drove 190 mi from Atlantic City to Easton. After the first 130mi he became tired and decided to decrease his speed by 5 mi/h. What was his speed before that if the entire tri

Algebra ->  Customizable Word Problem Solvers  -> Travel -> SOLUTION: Steve drove 190 mi from Atlantic City to Easton. After the first 130mi he became tired and decided to decrease his speed by 5 mi/h. What was his speed before that if the entire tri      Log On

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Question 713058: Steve drove 190 mi from Atlantic City to Easton. After the first 130mi he became tired and decided to decrease his speed by 5 mi/h. What was his speed before that if the entire trip took 3 hours?
Answer by josgarithmetic(39617) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Enter information in this table from the problem description. Some information is not directly given and we may need some or all of it. We'll find out as we go.

Condition___________Rate___________Time_____________Distance
Alert_______________r______________(__)______________130
Tired_______________r-5____________(__)______________(__)
TOTAL______________________________ 3_________________190

The missing times and distance are easy enough to calculate. Times are by distance/rate=time. Missing distance for "tired" is by difference.

Condition___________Rate___________Time_____________Distance
Alert_______________r______________(130%2Fr)____________130
Tired_______________r-5____________(60%2F%28r-5%29)__________(60)
TOTAL______________________________ 3_________________190


The most sensible way to continue from the completed table is use the sum of the times.

highlight%28130%2Fr%2B60%2F%28r-5%29=3%29, solve for r. (Lowest Common Denominator to start solving the equation is r%2A%28r-5%29.)