Sebastian swims laps every day in the community swimming pool. He swam 45 minutes each day, 5 days a week for 12 weeks. In that time, he swam 1,800 laps. What was his average rate in laps per hour?

40 laps per hour.

Always read a word problem and focus on what is asked. Secondly read back and consider the info given to calculate the requested answer. We are asked for average rate of laps swam per hour. We must find his total laps, and his total time of swimming. The number of laps are given directly to us, 1800.

The total time will have to be calculated in hours. It is useful to convert the minutes of a day’s practice into the unit of hours, since that is the unit requested in the answer.

We see that he swam 45 minutes for 5 days in each of 12 weeks. Express the minutes as ##45/60## or ##3/4## hours or 0.75 hours

So total time is ## 0.75 * 5 * 12 = 45## hours So our average is: ##1800/45 =40## laps per hour of swimming