Gary has walked 305 meters, and continues at a rate of 1 meter per second. Mary has walked 113 meters, and continues at a rate of 3 meters per second. In how many seconds will they have traveled the same distance?

You should have posted this question in the homework help section. But to get you started:

Set up an equation for each of the two walkers using: d = d_i + vt. Here d is the total distance, d_i is the initial distance (305 m for Gary and 113 m for Mary), v is the person's speed, and t is the time. For Gary you have:


d= 305m + 1 \frac m s \times t


and for Mary:


d = 113 m + 3 \frac m s \times t



For both distances to be equal set these two equations to be equal, and solve for t.