SOLUTION: 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 descen

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Question 74214This question is from textbook Beginning Algebra
: 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. This question is from textbook Beginning Algebra

Found 2 solutions by bucky, Poohbear272:
Answer by bucky(2189) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Be careful of this one. Slope normally is thought to be the same units in both the horizontal
and vertical directions. In this problem you have feet vertically and horizontally.
.
You can either change the 1800 feet to units of miles, or you can change the 3.25 miles to
units of feet. Then what you do is divide the vertical distance by the horizontal distance and
recognize that the vertical distance is negative because it is going down.
.
First let's change the vertical distance to miles. Since there are 5280 feet in a mile, the
1800 feet down translates to (-1800/5280) miles which calculates to -0.34091 miles. Then
divide this vertical distance by the horizontal distance of 3.25 miles to get:
.
(-0.34091/3.25) = -0.104895 which to the nearest hundredth is -0.10 slope. (Commonly
called a 10% downhill grade.)
.
Or we could have changed the 3.25 miles to feet and then divided it into the -1800 feet vertical
drop.
.
(3.25 miles)*(5280 feet/mile) = 17160 feet
.
Divide that into -1800 and you get (-1800/17160) = -0.104895. Same answer as before.
.
Hope this helps you. Be careful to have the same dimensions on both measurements,
use a minus sign to indicate down hill movement, and remember that slope is the vertical
change divided by the corresponding horizontal change (by definition).

Answer by Poohbear272(22) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
5280%2F1800=0.293 The three repeats so this is a viable distance.
slope = m = rise/run
m=0.293%2F3.25
Divide
m = 0.901538 This number goes on and on. Now we need to round to the nearest hundredth.
m= 0.09 or 9/100
Good luck!!