word problem involving driving time, i need to do one like this and need help please.?

Question

Science and medicine. Ariana took 2 h longer to drive 360 mi on the first day of a trip than she took to drive 270 mi on the second day. If her speed was the same on both days, what was the driving time each day?
so how do I go about doing this problem can you show me step by step so i can do another one kind of like it? thanks

Answer 1

speed is miles per hour.

so set x as the time:
first equation is 360/(x+2)
second is 270/x
set them equal to solve for x
270/x=360/(x+2)
get rid of x in the denominator
270x+540=360x
540=90x
6=x

So the second day took 6 hours and the first day took 8.

Answer 2

Hi Sara. Brett gave you a correct answer, however, I would like to suggest an easier way to get the correct answer for this problem.

It is 'given' that it took two additional hours to drive 360 miles vs. 270 miles. Therefore, it took 2 hours to drive 90 miles! (360-270=90). 2 hours to drive 90 miles equals 45 miles per hour!

Therefore: (360 miles)/(45 mph) = 8 hours

and, (270)/(45) = 6 hours.

Best wishes and good luck.