Solve Time Problems

This activity will ask you to solve a range of worded problems based on time.

Key facts to remember:

1 hour = 60 minutes

1 minute = 60 seconds

1 day = 24 hours

1 week = 7 days

Example:

Dennis takes the train to Birmingham.

He sets off at 9:25 in the morning and arrives at 9:47.

How long was his journey?

Answer:

In order to work out how many minutes have passed on the journey, we can simply calculate 47 - 25 = 22.

So, the total journey time is 22 minutes. 

Sometimes you can be faced with a trickier problem to solve that requires you to cross over to the next or the previous hour.

Example:

Atri went for a run round his school playing fields. He set off at 10.23 and ran for 56 minutes.

What time did he finish his run?

Answer:

If you simply add 56 to 23 minutes, you will see that you will have more than 60 minutes and so will be crossing over into the next hour. So, first work out how many minutes you need to add to 23 to reach 11.00:  60 - 23 = 37 so you know that 37 minutes after he starts running it will be 11.00. 

Next, you need to find out how many minutes more Atri ran by doing this calculation: 56 - 37 = 19. This means that Atri ran for a further 19 minutes after 11.00, meaning that he stopped running at 11.19.

Now let's try some questions.