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USSR Exam problem

Asked 7 years, 11 months ago Modified 7 years, 11 months ago Viewed 512 times

I obtained this problem from here.

7 A car starts from point A towards B at the same time as a motorcycle starts from B
to A (but with a lesser speed). At the moment they meet, a second motorcycle starts
from B and also meets the car. The distance between the two meeting places is the 2

distance between A and B . Had the car's speed been less by 20 kmh, the distance
between the two points would have been 72 km and the first encounter would have
taken place 3 hours after the car started from A. Assuming the two motorcycles have
the same speed, find the distance between A and B .

I started off using this method. First I know that the car and the first motorcycle will travel a
distance i in 3 hours. Let v denote the speed of the motorcycle and v denote the velocity of
m c

the car. Then, i = (v − 20)(3) and i = (v )(3). We know that the distance between the two
c m

meeting points is 72 and after the first meeting, we have two more equations:
i + 72 = (vc − 20)(3 + t) and d − i − 72 = (vm )(3 + t) where d is the distance between A
and B .

I'm wondering if I'm even on the right track with this problem. Or, is the answer as obvious as
noting that 72 is 2/9 of the distance.

recreational-mathematics problem-solving

Share Cite Follow edited Jun 9, 2015 at 20:02 asked Jun 7, 2015 at 22:12
emka
6,274 13 54 98

Sorted by:
2 Answers
Highest score (default)

S - path length
vm - motorcycle speed
2 vc - car speed (in the 1st case)

Case 1: Car speed is v c

t1 - time to 1st meeting

t2 - time between 1st and 2nd meeting
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Case 2: Car speed is v c − 20

t3 - time to 1st meeting

t4 - time between 1st and 2nd meeting

Just express all statements with equations

(and verify their logic 3-4 times):

vc . t1 + vm . t1 = S

vc . t2 + vm . t2 = S − vc . t1

2
vc . t2 = S
9

(vc − 20). t3 + vm . t3 = S

(vc − 20). t4 + vm . t4 = S − (vc − 20). t3

(vc − 20). t4 = 72

t3 = 3

Now we have 7 equations and 7 variables, right?

So the rest should be more or less routine.

EDIT:

The rest is not routine at all. One may easily get swamped in calculations (if one is solving it
manually, as I did) and thus lose too much time to say the least.

OK, I got 4 different solutions/paths of which 3 turned out impossible/invalid due to facts are
which are implicitly implied or explicitly given in the problem statement (the statement
implicitly implies that v − 20 ≥ 0, and also it says explicitly "the motorcycle has lesser
c

speed").
The only valid solution turns out to be the following:
vc = 80, vm = 40, t4 = 6/5, t3 = 3, S = 300 .

Btw, this problem doesn't seem too recreational :) which is expected taking into account its
source. Based on my modest experience the idea behind such problems is that all but the best
candidates would get swamped in calculations, and would waste too much time on this
problem, and thus will be left with too little time for the other problems. So the idea is to test
the candidates' math techniques too (any 6th grader can write the above equations but the rest
is not so easy at all). But on the other hand, from all 5 problems this one seems the easiest
maybe :) It's not an easy exam to say the least.

Share Cite Follow edited Jun 10, 2015 at 0:10 answered Jun 9, 2015 at 20:19
peter.petrov
12.2k 1 19 32

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I'm not sure how I ran into this problem, but my inability to arrive at enough equations currently
causing me to doubt my abilities as a competent mathematician. – emka Jun 10, 2015 at 17:56

I think doubting your abilities as a competent mathematician (no matter how much you know in math)
is the first step to becoming one :). So don't worry at all. – peter.petrov Jul 17, 2015 at 23:19

Let x be the distance between A and B , in kilometers. Let h be the number of hours from
when the car starts to when it meets the first motorcycle. Let bx be the distance traveled by the
1 motorcycle in h hours. During the first h hours, then, the car travels a distance (1 − b)x . The
distance between the car and the second motorcycle is therefore bx at the instant the second
motorcycle starts; it takes an additional bh hours for them to meet, during which the second
motorcycle travels a distance b x and the car travels (1 − b)bx .
2

But the problem statement says the car travels a distance 2

x between meeting the two
9

motorcycles, so (1 − b)bx =
2
x. Dividing by x,
9

2
(1 − b)b = .
9

The two possible solutions of this quadratic equation are b =

1

3
and b =
2

3
. We reject b =
1

because the motorcycle travels faster than the car. (Why do I say that? See my comments at
the end.)

Now instead of changing the speed of the car, I'll simply send out a second car at the same
time, traveling 20 kph slower. The second car meets the first motorcycle after 3 hours, at
which time the first car is 60 km (20 kph times 3 hours) ahead of the second car. Recall that
the motorcycle meets the first car at h hours and the second car at 3 hours, and that the
motorcycle travels twice as fast as the first car. Between h hours and 3 hours, therefore, the
motorcycle travels 40 km while the first car travels 20 km.

Let ax be the distance traveled by the second car in 3 hours, that is, the distance from A to the
meeting of the second car and the first motorcycle. The motorcycle meets the first car 40 km
farther from A, at 1

3
x km from A, so ax + 40 =
1

3
x; equivalently,

40
x = .
1
− a
3

At this point I assume the second motorcycle has already traveled 40 km, the same as the first
motorcycle traveled since meeting the first car. That is, I assume the second motorcycle always
starts h hours after the first one, regardless of the speed of the car. (See my comments below
for further explanation.) At the instant when the second car meets the first motorcycle,
therefore, the distance between motorcycles is x , just as it was when the first motorcycle met
2

the first car and the second motorcycle started.

The second car covered ax km in the time the first motorcycle traveled (1 − a)x km, so its
speed is a

1−a
of either motorcycle's speed. Between the instant when it meets the first
motorcycle and when it meets the second motorcycle, the second car travels 2

3
ax km while the

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second motorcycle travels 2

3
(1 − a)x km. But we are also told the car travels 72 km between
these same two events, so 2

3
ax = 72, and

108
x = .
a

We now have two different ways of expressing x in terms of a; set them equal:

40 108
= .
1
− a a
3

Cross-multiplying, we get 40a = 108 (

1

3
− a) , and solving this linear equation in a yields
a =
9

37
. Therefore, 1

3
− a =
10

111
. Since we previously found that x = 1
40
, we have
−a
3

x = 444.

Checking this answer: from x = 444 we have ax = 108, so the second car travels 36kph, the
first car 56 kph, and the motorcycles 112kph . We also find x = 148 ; check that 1

148 − 108 = 40 , the distance between where the first motorcycle meets the first car and
where it meets the second car. At 3 hours the distance between the second car and second
motorcycle is 444 − 108 − 40 = 296 km, which is the combined distance they travel in 2
hours: the motorcycle travels 224 km and the car travels 296 − 224 = 72 km.

Some remarks on the interpretation of the problem, which I found less clearly stated than I
would like. (Something lost in translation from Russian, perhaps?)

For the relative speeds of the car and motorcycle, I read the problem by paraphrasing it as, "A
car starts at the same time as a motorcycle, but with lesser speed." That is, a parenthetical
phrase is equivalent to a phrase set off by commas, and the car is still the subject of the main
clause of the sentence. The motorcycle would be slower if the problem had said, "A car starts
from point A towards B. At the same time, a motorcycle starts from B to A (but with a lesser
speed)."

For the case where the car traveled 20 kph slower, I had difficulty deciding whether the second
motorcycle should start 3 hours after the first motorcycle (at the instant when that motorcycle
meets the car) or whether the second motorcycle's starting time is independent of the car's
speed and only coincidentally occurs h hours after the first motorcycle starts. Initially, I took
the first interpretation, leading to the answer x =
600
≈ 401.914. I wrote up the second
3√ 34 −16

interpretation above because the problem statement did not say the second motorcycle would
leave later if the car was slower, and also because the second interpretation gives a neater
answer that one can easily check without use of a calculator.

Share Cite Follow answered Jun 10, 2015 at 13:56

David K
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