How do I solve this word problem?

9/40th of a mile? You divide 9/10 by 4 (don’t count the first and last marker), I think…I don’t know…I hate word problems.

.15 miles? I divided .9 by 6; however, I am a math moron so you shouldn’t really rely on this.

Welcome to Fluther.

You’re not likely to get a direct answer to your question, as stated. Perhaps if you tell us what you think the answer is and how you arrived at that answer we could help to guide you. But we flat do not answer homework questions.

In any case, there’s not enough information in the question. The signs could be two feet apart at the start of the trail, for all we know. The question doesn’t say that the signs have any particular spacing at all. Are we to assume that they are equally spaced, starting with the beginning of the trail and the end of the trail, or what?

Answer was posted here. Sorry, too late.

Turn 9/10 into a decimal and divide by 6.

@CyanoticWasp He did ask how to do it, not just for the answer.

Six posts = five spaces between them so each space is 9/50 of a mile?

@flutherother Yeah, I think that’s better than my thing, lol…I do think it’s not ‘divide by 6’ because they’re just trying to trick you.

42

One of the above answers is correct, assuming the markers are equally spaced. Draw a picture of a line, put a post at each end, add in the other posts. See if you can figure it out from there. You don’t necessarily need to convert 9/10 into 0.9, but the answer is the same either way (whether you answer as a fraction or decimal).

I think the question is somewhat ambiguous, because it is not clear if there are markers at the beginning and end of the trail. What purpose is served by having a trail marker at the end? Since the people who come up with these questions are usually too dim to think about these things, I would go along with @flutherother

The posts are there “to direct hikers”. In that case, there wouldn’t be one at the end of the trail. The final post would be located X distance from the end, where X is the distance between posts (assuming the posts are evenly spaced). Therefore, the “divide by 6” answers are incorrect.

Poor kid is more confused now than ever. there is a simple answer and a way to achieve it.

@LostInParadise That was my first thought. This is a trail for very insecure hikers.

The next thought is that if the question does not say “evenly spaced” there is no correct or incorrect answer.

I’d assume there is a marker to tell where the trail begins, a marker to tell you you’ve reached the end, and the markers are evenly spaced. This seems like the intent of the problem. But I could be wrong.

What I did was turn 9/10 into 9 over 10 (a fraction) and divided it by 6 over 1. And the answer came out as twenty over three and I changed it to a mixed number. 6 and 2 over three??

The question is flawed because it says nothing about having the markers at equal distances apart. Therefore, you could just put them anywhere…that is after the first and the last markers.

Bogus question. See JonnyCeltic’s answer.

@tigress3681 cheers

The hiking trail is 9/10 mile long. There are 6 markers posted along the trail to direct hikers. How far apart are the markers? Im taking the theory there is one at the beginning and one at the end.
9/10 divided by 6/1 = 9/10×1/6 = 9/60 simplified is 3/20 ths of a mile
5280ft divided 20=264ft 264ft x 3= 792 ft Each marker will be placed 792 ft apart.