Alex's rate of reading is 1/2 pages per minute, or 1 page every 2 minutes. To convert his rate to pages per hour, we can divide 60 (minutes in an hour) by 2 (minutes it takes Alex to read a page) which is equal to 30 (pages read in an hour). Therefore, Alex is reading at 30 pages an hour and reading 5 more pages an hour than Sammie.