Austin and Jake start descending from the 9th floor of a building at the same time. Austin uses the elevator and Jake uses the stairs, descending 3 steps every second. The stairs have 30 steps across each floor. If the elevator will take a minute to get to ground level, how many seconds later will Jake get to the ground floor? Give me reasons, before answering the question
Jake has to descend 30 steps on 9 floors for a total of 9 * 30 = 270 steps. He descends 3 steps every second so he will descend 270 steps in 270 / 3 = 90 seconds. Austin will get down after only a minute (60 seconds) so Jake will get down 90 - 60 = 30 seconds later. So the final answer is 30.