LEVEL 1

Sheila walks to the Dead Sea and throws a rock into the lake. Since the Sea is calm, ripples in the shape of concentric circles are formed on the water. If the radius of the outer ripple is increasing at a rate of 2 feet per second, at what rate is the total area of disturbed water changing when the radius is 5 feet?

Assume that oil spilled from a ruptured tanker spreads in a circular pattern whose area increases at a constant rate of 5 m2/s. How fast is the radius of the spill increasing when the radius of the spill is 25 m?

Air is pumped into a spherical balloon at a rate of 4.5 cubic feet per minute. Find the rate of change of the radius when the radius is 2 feet.

Let A be the area of a square whose sides have length s and assume that s varies with the time t. At a certain instant the sides are 3 m long and increasing at a rate of 2 m/min. How fast is the area increasing at that moment?

LEVEL 2
Car A is going west at 50 mi/h and car B is going north at 60 mi/h. Both are headed for the intersection of the two roads. At what rate are the cars approaching each other when car A is 0.3 mile and car B is 0.4 mile from the intersection?

Recall that the volume V of a cylinder with radius r and height h is V r 2 h. Sally places a marshmallow in the microwave to make a Smore. Assume that the marshmallow has the shape of a cylinder with a radius of 1 cm and a height of 3 cm. When she turns on the microwave, the marshmallow starts to expand at the rate of 2 cm3 per second. Assume also that as it grows, the height is always three times the radius. Find the rate at which the radius is increasing when the radius is 4 cm.

Let l be the length of a diagonal of a rectangle whose sides have lengths x and y, and assume that x and y vary with time. If x increases at a constant rate of 1/2 m/sec and y decreases at a constant rate of 1/4mt/sec, how fast is the size of the diagonal changing when x=3 m and y=4 m? [Hint: Pay attention to the words increasing and decreasing]

Suppose that water is drained from a right circular cone, such that the height of the water level is changing at a rate of -0.2 feet/minute and the radius is changing at a rate of -0.1 feet/minute. What is the rate of change in the volume when the radius is 1 foot and the height is 2 feet?

A 26 ft long ladder leans against a vertical wall. If the lower end is being moved away from the wall at the rate of 5 ft/sec, how fast is the height of the top decreasing when the lower end is 10 ft from the wall? How fast is the angle between the ladder and the wall changing at that moment?

An airplane is flying on a flight path that will take it directly over a radar tracking station. If the diagonal, straight line distance between the plane and the station is decreasing at a rate of 400 miles per hour when the plane is 10 miles along the ground from the station (so when it flies 10 more miles it will be directly over the station), and the plane is half a mile high in the air, what is the speed of the plane?

LEVEL 3
A television camera at ground level is filming the lift-off of a space shuttle. The shuttle is rising vertically according to the position equation s 50t 2 , where s is measured in feet and t is measured in seconds. The camera is 2000 feet from the launch pad. Find the rate of change in the angle of elevation of the camera at 10 seconds after lift-off.

At a distance of 400 m horizontally (which stays constant) from the launch site, a spectator is observing a rocket being launched directly vertically. If the rocket lifts off vertically at a speed of 215 m/s, when it is at an altitude of 900 m, how fast is the diagonal distance between the rocket and the spectator changing at that instant? How fast is the angle at which the person has to look up from the ground changing?

A person 6 feet tall walks away from a streetlight at the rate of 5 ft/s. If the light is 18 feet above ground level, how fast is the persons shadow lengthening?

An FBI agent with a powerful spyglass is located on a boat anchored 400 meters offshore. A gangster under surveillance is walking along the short. Assuming the shoreline is straight and that the gangster is walking at a rate of 2 km/hr, how fast must the FBI agent rotate the spyglass to track the gangster when the gangster is 1 km from the point on the shore nearest to the board? Convert your answer to degrees/minute.

A flood lamp is installed on the ground 200 feet from a vertical wall. A six foot tall man is walking towards the wall at the rate of 30 feet per second. How fast is the tip of his shadow moving down the wall when he is 50 feet from the wall?

A football is dropped from a height of 64 feet and at a horizontal distance of 16 feet from a light that is 64 feet above the ground at the top of a light pole. How fast is the shadow of the ball moving along the ground one second after the ball is dropped? Neglect air resistance so that the distance the football will have dropped as a function of time will be s = 16t2 with the football dropped at t = 0. Can you draw in the right triangle with sides of lengths 16 and 16t2 missing from the top of the picture below?

Extra practice see solutions on http://www2.seminolestate.edu/lvosbury/calculusI_folder/RelatedRateProblems.htm A boat is being pulled toward a dock by means of a rope attached to the front tip of the bow. Initially there are 30 feet of rope out and the rope is taught and being reeled in by a circular device the top of which is 10 feet higher than the point where the rope is attached to the boat. This circular device has a radius of 1 foot and turns at the rate of one revolution every pi seconds. How fast is the boat moving along the water when there are 15 feet of rope out?

Water is being poured into a conical reservoir at the rate of pi cubic feet per second. The reservoir has a radius of 6 feet across the top and a height of 12 feet. At what rate is the depth of the water increasing when the depth is 6 feet?

A football is dropped from a height of 64 feet and at a horizontal distance of 16 feet from a light that is 64 feet above the ground at the top of a light pole. How fast is the shadow of the ball moving along the ground one second after the ball is dropped? Neglect air resistance so that the distance the football will have dropped as a function of time will be s = 16t2 with the football dropped at t = 0. Can you draw in the right triangle with sides of lengths 16 and 16t2 missing from the top of the picture below?

A man 6 feet tall is walking toward a lamppost 20 feet high at a rate of 5 feet per second. The light at the top of the lamppost (20 feet above the ground) is casting a shadow of the man. At what rate is the tip of his shadow moving and at what rate is the length of his shadow changing when he is 10 feet from the base of the lamppost?

A fish is reeled in at a rate of 1 foot per second from a point 10 feet above the water. At what rate is the angle between the line and the water changing when there is a total of 25 feet of line out?