ASVAB Question of the Week: December 14, 2016

Here is our practice ASVAB question for this week - the answer is posted in the comments below!

ASVAB practice question

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Although this problem may sound difficult, it's not too hard to figure out - provided you know the steps to follow!

The first step is to figure out how far each car traveled in the 2.5 hours that they drove at their respective speeds. So we multiply each speed times 2.5 (since we assume they were always holding their speed perfectly steady):

55 x 2.5 = 137.5

70 x 2.5 = 175

Now that we know the distance they traveled, we have to find the distance that they are from each other. Notice that one car went north and one went west - this means that the cars form a right triangle!

Let's call the starting point B, the northern car A, and the western car C. To find the distance between the two cars at the end of 2.5 hours, we need to find the distance of line AC. To do this, we use the Pythagorean theorem (A^2 + B^2 = C^2), using the distances we already know. So:

137.5^2 + 175^2 = C^2

18,906.25 + 30,625 = 49,531.25

Then we find the square root of 49,531.25, which we will round off to 222.5. The answer is C)!