Question

Aneesha travels at a rate of 50 miles per hour. Morris is traveling 3 feet per second less than Aneesha. Which is the best estimate of the speed Morris is traveling?

Answer 1

A reasonable estimate of Morris's speed would be `58` miles/hour

Explanation:

The phrasing of the question implies that there should have been a list of values to choose from but no such list was provided.

`3("feet")/("second")`
`color(white)("XXX")=3("feet")/("second") xx 60("seconds")/("minute")xx60("minutes")/("hour")`

`3 xx (60 xx 60) = 3 xx 3600` which is a little more that `10,000`

So `3("feet")/("second")` is a little more that `10,000("feet")/("hour")`

There are `5,280` feet in a mile.
If we round this down to `5,000` feet per mile.

then we have an estimated speed difference of
`color(white)("XXX")(10,000 "feet"/"hour")/(5,000 "feet"/"mile")=2 "miles"/"hour"`

So Morris is travelling at approximately `2 "miles"/"hour"` less than Aneesha's given `60 "miles"/"hour"`
or at approximately `58 "miles"/"hour"`

As a point of interest, using a spreadsheet to calculate the difference in traveling at 60 miles per hour versus 58 miles per hour gave a value of `2.93bar(3)` feet per second; pretty close to the requested `3` feet per second.