To find out how long the flight was, we will follow these steps since we are dealing with time zones (Pacific Standard Time - PST and Eastern Standard Time - EST).
1. First, we need to account for the time zone difference between PST and EST. The Eastern Standard Time is 3 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time.
2. Next, we will adjust the arrival time to the same time zone as the departure time (PST) to calculate the duration of the flight correctly.
3. Once we have aligned times to the same time zone, we can calculate the duration of the flight by finding the difference between the arrival and departure times.
4. Finally, we convert this time difference into hours and minutes to answer the question given in the practice test.
Let's perform these calculations:
1. Adjust the arrival time from EST to PST:
Philadelphia at 2:45 am EST is equivalent to 11:45 pm PST the previous day (since we subtract 3 hours to convert EST to PST).
2. Now, we calculate the difference between the departure and the adjusted arrival times within the PST time zone.
- Departure from San Francisco at 6:15 pm PST.
- Adjusted arrival in Philadelphia at 11:45 pm PST.
3. We calculate the flight duration by taking the difference.
From 6:15 pm to 11:45 pm is:
11:45 pm - 6:15 pm = 5 hours and 30 minutes.
Therefore, the correct duration of the flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia, after adjusting for the time zone difference, is 5 hours and 30 minutes.
The correct answer from the choices provided is:
b. 5 1/2 hours
