In Time, Speed and Distance problems, it's a good idea to draw a rough diagram to visualize the given information.
Let the distance between the Home and the Point of Meeting be D miles. The question asks us to find the value of D.
As per the question, Timothy's mother left home 15 minutes after he did. But they both reached the Point of Meeting at the same time.
This means,
(Time taken by Timothy's mother to cover D miles) = (Time taken by Timothy to cover D miles) - (15 minutes)
Now, \(Time = \frac{Distance}{Speed}\)
So, the above equation becomes:
\(\frac{D}{36} = \frac{D}{9} - \frac{15}{60}\)
Upon solving this, we get, D = 3 miles
One important point to be careful of in Distance and Speed questions is: Use the same units for a particular quantity throughout the question. By this I mean, if the speed is expressed in miles per
hour and travel time/ difference between time taken by 2 people is given in minutes, then you must remember to either convert the time from minutes to hours or convert the speed from miles per hours to miles per minutes. Throughout the question, you should use only one unit for time.
Hope this helped!
Japinder