Section MU.4 – Problem Solving Using Rates and Dimensional Analysis Practice Problems

Round your answers to two decimal places unless otherwise noted.

1. The average top speed of a NASCAR driver is around 200 miles per hour during a race.  How many kilometers per hour is this?

2. Usain Bolt’s average speed is 37.58 kilometers per hour, how fast is this in miles per hour?

3. U.S. teens aged 15 to 19 years spent an average of 86.4 minutes per day playing games and using computers for leisure?

a. How many hours per day is this?
b. How many seconds per day is this?

4. A bicycle is traveling at 16 miles per hour. How many feet will it cover in 40 seconds? Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a foot.

5. A car is traveling 33 miles per hour. How many feet will the car travel in 6 seconds? Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a foot.

6. A car is traveling at 60 kilometers per hour. How many meters does it travel in 4 seconds?

7. A car is driving at 100 kilometers per hour. How many meters does it travel in 2 seconds?

8. A chain weighs 10 pounds per foot. How many ounces will 4 inches weigh?

9. One 16-ounce can of vegetable soup costs $1.34. One quart of vegetable soup costs $3.49. Which option is less expensive per ounce? What is the savings per ounce?

10. A wire costs $2 per meter. How much will 3 kilometers of wire cost?

11. A recipe for blueberry muffins states that it yields 12 muffins, with 270 calories per muffin. You instead decide to make mini-muffins, and the recipe yields 20 mini-muffins. If you eat 6 mini-muffins, how many calories will you consume?

12. The store is selling lemons at 2 for $1. Each lemon yields about 2 tablespoons of juice.  How much will it cost to buy enough lemons to make a 9-inch lemon pie requiring half a cup of lemon juice?

13. When Ibuprofen is given for fever to children 6 months of age up to 2 years, the usual dose is 5 milligrams (mg) per kilogram (kg) of body weight. How much medicine would be a usual dose for an 18-month old weighing 28 pounds? Round your answer to the nearest milligram.

14. It is estimated that a driver takes, on average, 1.5 seconds from seeing an obstacle to reacting by applying the brake or swerving. How far will a car, traveling at 60 miles per hour, travel in feet before the driver reacts to an obstacle?

15. Sound travels about 750 miles per hour. If you stand in a canyon and sound a horn, you will hear an echo. Suppose it takes about 3 seconds to hear the echo. How far away is the canyon wall, in feet?

16. A rectangular swimming pool has a length of 13 feet, a width of 25 feet and a depth of 5 feet. The pool can hold 1625 cubic feet of water.

a. How many gallons of water can the pool hold?
b. If water costs $1.65 per thousand gallons, how much will it cost to fill the pool?

17. Bernadette is making a quilt. She needs 3 square feet of green fabric, 3 square feet of purple fabric and 12 square feet of white fabric. If fabric costs $8.95 per square yard, how much will Bernadette pay?

18. You want to put a layer of topsoil in a new garden. You determine that you will need 15 cubic yards.  The dirt store sells bags of topsoil that cover 40 cubic feet.  How many bags will you need to buy?

19. Gasoline in Paris costs 1.32 euros per liter. What is the price of gas in dollars per gallon?

20. A 0.75-liter bottle of wine costs 83 euros. What is the price of the wine in dollars per ounce?