Wally and Sharon are seeing who can throw a baseball farther. Wally threw the ball 35 yards, and Sharon threw the ball 123 feet. Who threw the baseball farther?

1 Answer
Geoff K.
Dec 3, 2016

Sharon threw the baseball farther.

Explanation:

Convert one of the measurements to the units of the other one.

Wally threw the ball 35 yards.
#35" yd"=35""cancel"yd"color(blue)(times"3 ft"/cancel"yd")#
#color(white)(35" yd")=105" ft"#

So Wally threw the ball #105" ft"#, while Sharon thew it #123" ft".# Since the numbers are now in the same unit, we can directly compare them. And since #105" ft"<123" ft"#, we know that Sharon threw the ball farther.

Bonus:

We could also have converted Sharon's throw from feet to yards:

#123" ft"=123" "cancel"ft"color(blue)(times "1 yd"/("3 "cancel"ft"))#
#color(white)(123" ft")=41" yd"#

So Sharon threw the ball #41" yd"#. And since #41" yd">35" yd",# we again conclude that Sharon threw the ball farther.

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