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Here's a shmoopy question for you... Two trolls, Jimmy and Jonny, are walking home
after a long night of...clubbing. Their distances from home (in feet) as a function
of time (in seconds) are given by the following graph.
After 10 minutes of walking, how far apart are they?
Here are the potential answers:
Before we spoil the ending, hit pause and try to solve it yourself.
Can we read a graph? Answer: yes.
Can we read it accurately? Eih...well, let's see.
OK so the first prep work we have to do here is to get the units all on the same page.
The trolls are walking...well, lumbering, really...10 MINUTES, and the graph is giving
us the time units in seconds. Thanks a lot, graph.
So...with 60 seconds in a minute, and 10 minutes involved, we need the mark to hit at the 600
point. Now draw a line vertically from that point
and let's see where it intersects.
Looks like about...here.
In 10 minutes, Jimmy walked this many feet; and in those same 10 minutes, Jonny walked
this many feet.
We have to label a few grid lines here.
This one is half way between 4800 and 2400 so it's gotta be 3600É
...this line is half way between 3600 and 2400 so it's gotta be 3000É
...and this one is half way between 3600 and 4800 so it's gotta be 4200.
So now we just note the feet. Jimmy is 3000 feet along the way and Jonny
is 3600 feet...so they are 3600 minus 3000 feet...or 600
feet apart. And the answer is B.
See, that wasn't too ogre-ly complicated!