Question

A constable is 114 m behind a thief. The constable runs 21 m and the thief 15 m in a min. In what time will the constable catch the thief ?

Answer 1

the constable will catch the thief in 19 minutes

Answer 2

The constable will catch the thief  in 19 minutes

Given:  

A constable is ‘114 m’ behind a ‘thief’. The constable runs ‘21 m’ and the thief ‘15’m in a min.  

To find:

The time taken by the constable to catch the thief  

Solution:

In one minute, the thief runs 15m and the constable runs 21m. There is distance of 6m between them i.e. 21m - 15m = 6m per minute

Now, the constable is 114m behind the thief while we found out that there is difference of 6m between them per minute.

Therefore, the time taken to catch the thief  

$=\frac{\text {the distance between the constable and thief}}{\text {Difference of distance covered by them per minute}}$

$=\frac{144}{6}$

= 19 minutes.

Hence, in 19 minutes, the constable will catch the thief.