Question

In a 5000 m race, the athletes run 12 1/2 laps; each lap is 400 m.Kara runs the race at a constant pace and finishes in 17.9 min.Hannah runs the race in a blistering 15.3 min, so fast that she actually passes Kara during the race. How many laps has Hannah run when she passes Kara?

Answer 1

Answer:

No. of laps of Hannah are 7 (approx).

Solution:

According to the question:

The total distance to be covered, D = 5000 m

The distance for each lap, x = 400 m

Time taken by Kara, $t_{K} = 17.9 min = 17.9\times 60 = 1074 s$

Time taken by Hannah, $t_{H} = 15.3 min = 15.3\times 60 = 918 s$

Now, the speed of Kara and Hannah can be calculated respectively as:

$v_{K} = \frac{D}{t_{K}} = \frac{5000}{1074} = 4.65 m/s$

$v_{H} = \frac{D}{t_{H}} = \frac{5000}{918} = 5.45 m/s$

Time taken in each lap is given by:

$(v_{H} - v_{K})t = x$

$(5.45 - 4.65)\times t = 400$

$t = \frac{400}{0.8}$

t = 500 s

So, Distance covered by Hannah in 't' sec is given by:

$d_{H} = v_{H}\times t$

$d_{H} = 5.45\times 500 = 2725 m$

No. of laps taken by Hannah when she passes Kara:

$n_{H} = \frac{d_{H}}{x}$

$n_{H} = \frac{2725}{400} = 6.8$ ≈ 7 laps