NCERT Solutions for Class 5th Maths Chapter 12 Seconds — School Race
Book page 157 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Do you notice the use of a new unit ‘seconds’ in the picture?Page 156, “School Race” — the winners’ stand after the 200 m walking race. Each board shows the time in minutes and seconds.
Answer
Yes. The three little boards on the winners' podium say Min. Sec. at the top. So each timing is given in minutes and seconds, not in hours and minutes.
Read the three boards in your book:
Podium place
Board shows
Means
1
01 : 55
1 minute 55 seconds
2
01 : 56
1 minute 56 seconds
3
01 : 57
1 minute 57 seconds
The book's new fact: 1 min = 60 seconds
Why a race needs seconds: All three girls took about one minute. If we only said 1 minute for each of them, we could never tell who won. Seconds are small enough to show the tiny gaps between them. A smaller unit gives a more exact measurement.
How long is a second? Say one thousand one slowly. That is about one second. Your heart beats roughly once every second when you are sitting quietly.
Q2.
In situations like a race, ‘seconds’ help us observe small differences in time taken by participants. Each participant took 1 minute but how much more?
Answer
Each girl took 1 full minute and then some extra seconds — 55, 56 and 57 seconds more.
Split each timing into two parts. The number before the colon is minutes; the number after it is seconds.
01 : 55 → 1 minute + 55 seconds more.
01 : 56 → 1 minute + 56 seconds more.
01 : 57 → 1 minute + 57 seconds more.
If you want the whole time in seconds, change the 1 minute into 60 seconds and add.
1 min 55 s = 60 + 55 = 115 seconds 1 min 56 s = 60 + 56 = 116 seconds 1 min 57 s = 60 + 57 = 117 seconds
How close the race was: 116 − 115 = 1 second, and 117 − 116 = 1 second. Only one second separated each girl from the next. That is less time than it takes you to say her name.
Q3.
Identify the child who won the race. How much time did the child take?
Answer
The girl standing on box number 1 won the race. She is the one in the red T-shirt with her fist raised and the gold medal round her neck. She took 1 minute 55 seconds.
In a race, the winner is the one who takes the least time — not the most.
Compare the three timings: 1 min 55 s, 1 min 56 s, 1 min 57 s.
All three have the same 1 minute, so compare only the seconds: 55, 56, 57.
55 is the smallest, so that girl finished first.
Winning time = 1 minute 55 seconds = 60 s + 55 s = 115 seconds
Note about the names: The book tells us the three runners are Akira, Sunita and Mary, but the picture does not print a name on any girl. So we can say which place each timing belongs to, but not which name. Look at the picture in your own book and decide with your class who is who.
Try This: How far behind the winner was the third girl? 117 − 115 = 2 seconds. In a 200 m walking race, 2 seconds is only a couple of steps.