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Algebra 1
Course: Algebra 1 > Unit 6
Lesson 6: Systems of equations word problems- Age word problem: Imran
- Age word problem: Ben & William
- Age word problem: Arman & Diya
- Age word problems
- System of equations word problem: walk & ride
- Systems of equations word problems
- System of equations word problem: no solution
- System of equations word problem: infinite solutions
- Systems of equations word problems (with zero and infinite solutions)
- Systems of equations with elimination: TV & DVD
- Systems of equations with elimination: apples and oranges
- Systems of equations with substitution: coins
- Systems of equations with elimination: coffee and croissants
- Systems of equations: FAQ
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System of equations word problem: walk & ride
Systems of equations can be used to solve many real-world problems. In this video, we solve a problem about distances walking and riding bus to school.
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- I get confused by this type of solution because of the units. It's funny how you can just have a system of equations despite all their different units. Like he sums one equation that deals with distance (km) and another that deals with time (hours). How is that not conflicting? This cause my brain to shut down a little...(61 votes)
- Maybe it's easier to see this when you make the times, rather than the distances, the unknowns.
If w is time walking and b is time busing, then
1) 5w + 60b = 35
[(5mph * w hrs) + (60mph * b hrs) = 35 miles (that is, speed1*time1 + speed2*time2 = total distance)]
2) 2w + 2b = 3
[from w + b = 1.5. (that is, time1 + time2 = total time)].
You can see here that while equation "1)" is about distance, and equation "2)" about time, that since the rates (5mph and 60mph) are not unknowns, they can be thought of simply as numbers that show another way that the two times are related, which gives you 2 (different) equations in two unknown times, which is enough information to get a solution.(30 votes)
- How did you get 11/12B by adding B and -B/12 together?
I don't get it at all! Please explain in an easier way..(34 votes)- according to professionals from NASA and millions of researchers all across the globe:
We got B and add -B/12 or
B-B/12
which is equal to
1B-1B/12
look that the Bees have a legitimate exponent corresponding to one(1)
now:
1 is and can be 12/12 or any number over its number like 1/1
so:
12/12B-1B/12 and 1B/12 is 1/12B
so:
12/12B-1/12B
put bees aside and work out the fraction because everything we're working is with bees:
(12/12-1/12)B = 11/12 B(15 votes)
- I like to use substitution when solving problems with multiple equations. Is there a preferred method?
w = time walking, b = time riding the bus
w + b = 1.5, w = 1.5 - b, b = 1.5 - w
5w + 60b = 35 (speed times time equals distance)
5w + 60(1.5 - w)=35
5w + 90 - 60w = 35
5w - 60w + 90 - 90 = 35 - 90
-55w = -55
w = 1, b = 0.5
5(1) + 60(.5) = 35
5 + 30 = 35
The trip to school: 5 kilometers walked in an hour and 30 kilometers traveled on the bus in 0.5 hours.(36 votes)- this is the simplest and best solution to me by far(6 votes)
- I struggle when doing word problems in how to define my variables. I noticed in this video that Sal went straight to what question the problem was asking and defined his variables based on that. Is that a good idea in general to define your variables based on the question?(21 votes)
- @bhannon039 I struggled with your problem as well in the past, I finally figured out the exact same solution as yours, and it has helped a lot.(5 votes)
- i don't get how you can subtract 1.5hours from 35 kilometers :((18 votes)
- See, when we convert problems to equations we don't write it with units as we have the same variables on the same side(in this case 'w' and 'b') so we can proceed further without caring about their units.(5 votes)
- Why does he put w over 5 and b over 60 into fractions? Is there other ways you where you don't have to have fractions to solve the linear equation?(6 votes)
- w/5 just means w divided by 5 and same with B/60. You divide because you want to find the rate of how fast he's walking (w) and how long he was on the bus (B).(4 votes)
- Where did the 12 come from? Sounds like it should’ve been
5b/60.
5/60 is NOT 12.(3 votes)- You are correct - it isn't 12 and Sal doesn't make it 12. 5b/60 when reduced is equal to b/12.
the fraction is reduced by dividing both the numerator and denominator by 5: 5b/5=b and 60/5=12.
Hope this helps.(13 votes)
- Sakura speaks 150 words per minute on average in Hungarian, and 190 words per minute on average in Polish. She once gave cooking instructions in Hungarian, followed by cleaning instructions in Polish. Sakura spent 5 minutes total giving both instructions, and spoke 270 more words in Polish than in Hungarian.
This was very confusing how the problem gave the step by steps. I don't understand what made the y value a negative along with the constant after the equal symbol. the step by step wrote it as 150x-190y=-270, I thought it would be 150x+190y=270 And x+y=5(6 votes)- Let P be time in Polish and H be time in Hungarian, so P + H = 5
I would have started the second equation as 190P = 150H + 270 (more than is + ). Thus it could be either 190P - 150H = 270 (this is the one that makes more sense to me) or 150H - 190P = -270 (this would work, but not what I would choose).
I would then multiply first times 150, 150P + 150P = 750, add two equations 340P = 1020, P = 3 so H = 2. Thus, 190(3) = 570 and 150(2) = 300 to check our second equation 570 = 300 + 270.
Hope this helps your understanding.(5 votes)
- Hi,
Do anyone know where in Khan Acadamy does it teach the elimination method? I got stuck on a question and when I click on the hints it told me to use that method, but I have never heard of it.
Thanks for anyone who answers!(4 votes)- Learn to use the search feature on top left of blue bar. Put in Elimination and it will give good videos.(5 votes)
- This might be dumb, but why did he multiply the equation by -5?(4 votes)
- No serious question is dumb. In order to use elimination on a system of equations, you have to have one of the variables be additive inverses in the two equations. Since you have a w (or 1w) on the first equation, to eliminate the w's, you need a -1w on the other since w - w = 0. Thus, starting with w/5, multiplying by -5 on whole second equation reaches that goal, adds the negative and 5 * 1/ = 1.(6 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Yochanan walked
from home to the bus stop at an average speed of
five kilometers per hour. He immediately got on his school bus and traveled at an average speed of 60 kilometers per hour
until he got to school. The total distance from his home to school is 35 kilometers, and the entire trip took one and a half hours. How many kilometers did Yochanan cover by walking, and how many kilometers did he cover by travelling
on the bus? It's fascinating. So I encourage you to pause the video and try to think about on your own. Alright, so let's just
define some variables here. How many kilometers did
he cover by walking? Let's call this W and how many kilometers did he cover by travelling on the bus? Let's call that, Let's call that B and so what do we know? We know that the kilometers and I can actually even
draw it just to make sure that we're visualizing this thing, right? So this right over here is
his home, that's his home and then he is going to
travel and see they tell us, they tell us that it is
35 kilometers to school so this is his school right over here. I'll draw a bigger
building, that's his school, and we know that this
distance is 35, 35 kilometers and we also know that it
took one and a half hours. One and a half hours, now he traveled at different rates for
different distances. So he traveled some
distance to the school bus so this is, or to the bus stop, so that's the bus stop, right over there, and we're seeing this
distance to the bus stop, that's how much he covered by walking. So this right over here, this
distance, right over here, that is W and the rest of the distance, he covered by the bus, so
the rest of this distance, all of this distance right over there, that is going to be B. So what do we know? We know the distance covered by walking plus the distance covered by bus is going to be 35 kilometers,
35 kilometers here, this is the entire, that
is the entire distance from home to school, so
we know that W plus B, W plus B, plus B is
equal to 35 kilometers, is equal to 35 kilometers
and just with one equation, we're not going to be able to
figure out what W and B are but we have another constraint. We know the total amount of time. So the total amount of time is going to be one and half hours, so we'll
just write that over here. This is going to be 1.5, so
what's the time traveled by, what's the time he walks? Let me write this over here, time time walking, we'll that's going to be the distance walking
divided by the rate walking. So the distance walking is W kilometers W kilometers divided by his rate, the distance divided by your rate is gonna give you your time, so let's see, his rate is five kilometers per hour, five kilometers per
hour and so you're gonna have kilometers cancel kilometers and if you divide by or
if you have one over hours in the denominator, that's
going to be the same thing, this is gonna be W over five
hours, so the units work out. So his time walking is W over five, W over five and by that same logic, his time on the bus is
going to be the distance on the bus divided by,
divided by the average speed of the school bus, so
this is going to be 60. This is all going to be in hours and now we can solve
this system of equations. We have two linear
equations with two unknowns. We should be able to find W and B that satisfy both of these. Now what's an easy thing to do? Let's see, if I can multiply
this second equation by negative five, and I'm gonna, this is going to be a negative W here so it'll cancel out with this W up there. So let's do that, let's
multiply the second equation by, I'm just gonna
switch to one color here, so this top equation is going
to be W plus B is equal to 35. This bottom equation,
if I multiply both sides by negative five, so both
sides by negative five, I'm going to multiply both
sides by negative five I'm going to get negative
five times W over five is negative W, negative
five times B over 60. Let's see, it's gonna be,
it's going to be negative five over 60, that's negative
1/12, so this is negative B over 12 and then it is
going to be equal to 1.5 times negative five is
negative 7.5, negative 7.5. Now we can just add the left and right hand sides of these two equations. Now let me, I can do
this a little bit neater, let me actually delete, let me make these line up a little bit better
so that we, delete that, make this, so this first
equation was, whoops, this first equation was
W plus B is equal to 35 now they line up better and now we can add the left hand sides of these equations and the right hand sides,
so the left hand sides, the W's cancel out. That's what we wanted. Now B minus B over 12 or
B minus the twelfth of B, well that's going to be 11/12B, 11/12B is equal to, let's see, 35 minus 7.5, see 35 minus seven would be 28 and then another
half this would be 27.5. 27.5 and since I'm dealing
with a fraction here, let me write this as a fraction so this is the same thing as 55 over two. Let's me just write it this way. This is the same thing as 55 over two. Now to solve for B, I
just have to multiply both sides times this reciprocal. I'll switch colors just
to ease the monotony. So multiply both sides by
12 over 11, 12 over 11, what we get, these cancel out, what we get is that B, so I'll do this in this color, B is equal to, let's see, I
have a 12 in the numerator two in the denominator so I can make that a six and a one,
then I have a 55 and 11, I can divide both by 11, so
it's gonna be five and a one. So it's five times six, B is equal to 30 and B was in kilometers so
if he travels 30 kilometers, 30 kilometers by bus, B
is equal to 30 kilometers, and the amount that he walks,
well, we can figure that out. If this is 30, well the amount that he walks is going to be five. This is going to be five kilometers, W, let me write this, W is
equal to five kilometers. He walks five kilometers and then he goes by the bus 30 kilometers.