Question

a penguin walks south. It completes the first 1/2 mile in 1/5 hour and continues walking at the same rate. What is the penguin's speed in miles per hour? show your work.

Answer 1

Let’s set one hour as the variable h.
We can write that 1/2 mile = 1/5h.
Your goal is to turn 1/5 h into just h. You can achieve this by multiplying both sides of the equation by 5.
h= 5/2 miles, or 2 1/2 miles. So the penguin would walk at the speed 5/2 miles per hour.