This is a question in one of the PrepSwift Tick-box quizzes: "Smargel and Smeegz are bitterly arguing over some triviality, despite their cooperation in the previous problem. To settle things, they have decided to play a game of chicken on an abandoned road. Smargel drives towards Smeegz at a constant rate of 90 mph and Smeegz returns the favor and drives at a constant speed of 120 mph toward Smargel (Smeegz has the better car you see). If the two former lads are currently 10 miles apart, how many seconds will it take for them to meet in the middle in a brutal crash that solves nothing?
Round your answer to the nearest whole second.
The answer is 171.43 seconds. So, when you round it off shouldn’t the answer be 172 seconds since at 171 seconds they wouldn’t have collided yet?
This makes it clear.
not really, at 171 seconds they would not have collided yet
Breaking the question down into two parts should help:
Part 1: Smargel and Smeegz are bitterly arguing over some triviality, despite their cooperation in the previous problem. To settle things, they have decided to play a game of chicken on an abandoned road. Smargel drives towards Smeegz at a constant rate of 90 mph and Smeegz returns the favor and drives at a constant speed of 120 mph toward Smargel (Smeegz has the better car you see). If the two former lads are currently 10 miles apart, how many seconds will it take for them to meet in the middle in a brutal crash that solves nothing?
Part 2: Round your answer from part 1 to the nearest integer.
Our whole question boils down to solving Part 2. Since Part 2 needs the output of Part 1, we solve Part 1. But notice how the output of Part 2 doesn’t have any “relation” to what is happening in Part 1, besides just the output from it. Part 2 could have very well been, “round your answer from Part 1 to the nearest integer and then find the remainder when divided by 5.”
Tldr; 171 seconds is your answer to Part 2 because \operatorname{round}(3600/21) = 171. Your output from Part 2 need not have any correlation with the physical scenario in Part 1 because it’s a different question altogether.
makes sense if we treat them as separate questions.