A skydiver falls 144 feet at 3 seconds. What is the unit rate?

1 Answer
May 19, 2016

48 feet per second

Explanation:

Write as #144/3# but for unit rate we need #?/1#

So we need to change the 3 into 1. We can do this by dividing it by 3. Using the rule: "what you do to the bottom you also do to the top" (this does not work for add or subtract).

Divide the top and bottom by 3

#144/3" "->" "(144-:3)/(3-:3) " "->" "48/1#

So feet per second

#" "->" "("feet")/("seconds")" "->" "48" feet per second"#