Speed, distance and time word problems, step by step
Distance is speed multiplied by time.
The question
What is its speed in km per hour?
A cargo ship travels 125 km in 5 hours.
A cargo ship travels 125 km in 5 hours.
numbers:1255
125 ÷ 5
asked:What is its speed in km per hour?
125 ÷ 5 =25
25 km/h
- Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- Now the numbers: 125 and 5. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- Distance divided by time is speed — the whole distance split over the hours gives how far you went in one. So this one is a division: 125 ÷ 5.
- 125 ÷ 5 = 25 km/h. And answer the question that was ASKED — "What is its speed in km per hour?" — in km/h, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.
How it works.
- 01
Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
- 02
Now the numbers: 125 and 5. Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
- 03
Distance divided by time is speed — the whole distance split over the hours gives how far you went in one. So this one is a division: 125 ÷ 5.
- 04
125 ÷ 5 = 25 km/h. And answer the question that was ASKED — "What is its speed in km per hour?" — in km/h, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.