Malcolm is trying to find the fastest walk to school and is currently comparing two routes. In the first route, he walks for 6 minutes uphill, walks for twice this amount of time along a path, then finishes the journey in a third of the time it took to walk the first two stages. In the second route, he walks along a flat path for 14 minutes, then finishes the walk in twice this amount of time. In minutes, how much longer was the second route compared with the first?
Thoughts? Step-by-step reasoning:
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In the first route, Malcolm spends 6 minutes * 2 = 12 minutes walking along the path. So in total, the first two stages of this route take him 6 + 12 = 18 minutes. This means the final part of the journey took him 18 / 3 = 6 minutes. Therefore, the total time it takes to walk the first route is 18 + 6 = 24 minutes. In the second route, the second stage takes him 14 * 2 = 28 minutes. So the second route takes a total of 28 + 14 = 42 minutes to walk. The second route therefore takes an extra 42 minutes for the second route – 24 minutes for the first route = 18 minutes.
Thus, the answer is 18.
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