Question

Bill went to the museum at 11:30 A.M . He stayed for 3 1/2 hours.When did he leave ?

Answer 1

To start, note that an hour is 60 minutes long. A 1/2 hour, or half hour, is then 60/2=30 minutes. Therefore, when we have 11 hours and 30 minutes, we have 11 and a half hours. Adding 3 and a half to that, we get 11.5+3.5=15 (a half can also be expressed as .5, although it's not typically done that way when expressing time - it just might be easier to visualize it this way). Therefore, we are 15 hours into the day. However, we can't just stop there - we have to account for AM and PM. Therefore, we subtract 12 hours from 15. If the number is positive, we are in PM - otherwise, we're in AM. Therefore, as 15-12=3, the time is in PM. The remaining number is the time, so Bill leaves at 3 PM. If we are left with a decimal (e.g. 3.25), we would keep the 3 and multiply the 0.25 (the decimal) by 60 to figure out how many minutes we have, so 3.25 would turn into 3+0.25*60=3:15.

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