Angle of clock hands

Math Central

Quandaries & Queries

Subject: Angle of clock hands
Name: Sophia
Who are you: Student

How many degrees are in the aute angle formed by the hands of a clock at 2:20 p.m.?

Hi Sophia.

The minute hand is pointing at the 20.
The tricky part about this question is figuring out where the hour hand is when the time is 2:20, but we can think about it this way:
The hour hand is 2hr+20min past noon. That's 140 minutes past noon.
There are 12*60=720 minutes in a 12 hour cycle, so the hour hand has gone 140/720 of a cycle around the clock.

Does this help?
Sue

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