If you are driving down a 10% grade, you will always be 10% below where you would have been if you could have driven on flat ground from where you started. Suppose you descend to where you are 20 feet below your starting point. What concept does the “grade” relate to, and how far would you have been from where you started if you had driven on flat ground?

I have know clue how to solve this. please help!

since the "depth" is 10% of the horizontal distance, you'd have to drive 200' horizontally to be directly over the point 20' below.

the grade is the tangent of the angle of descent, or the slope of the road.

To solve this problem, we need to understand the concept of "grade" and use it to find the distance on flat ground.

The grade is a term used to indicate the slope of a road or terrain. In this specific case, a 10% grade means that for every 100 feet you move horizontally, you also move 10 feet vertically downward.

To calculate the distance on flat ground, we can use the idea that for every 10 feet we descend on the grade, we will be 10% below where we would have been on flat ground.

Given that you descended to a point 20 feet below your starting point, we know that it is 10% below where you would have been on flat ground.

So, to find the distance on flat ground, we can divide the descent by the grade percentage, which is 10%.

Distance on flat ground = Descent / Grade percentage
= 20 feet / 10%
= 20 feet / 0.1
= 200 feet

Therefore, if you had driven on flat ground, you would have been 200 feet from where you started.