Question

Blue Car can travel 35 1/2 miles on 1 1/4 gallons of gasolineSilver car can travel 27 1/5 miles on 4/5 gallons of gasoline.You are running a fuel economy study. You want to find out which car can travel a greater distance on 1'gallon of gas. a. What is the gas mileage, in miles per gallon, for the blue car? b. What is the gas mileage, in miles per gallon, for the silver car? c. Which car could travel the greater distance on 1 gallon of gas?

Answer 1

a. We have to find how many miles each car can travel with 1 gallon of gas.

For the blue car, we can use the next proportion:

$\frac{35.5\text{ miles}}{x\text{ miles}}=\frac{1.25\text{ gallons}}{1\text{ gallon}}$

Solving for x:

$\begin{gathered} 35.5\cdot1=1.25\cdot x \\ \frac{35.5}{1.25}=x \\ 28.4\text{ =x} \end{gathered}$

Blue car's mileage: 28.4 miles per gallon

b. For the silver car, we can use the next proportion:

$\frac{27.2\text{ miles}}{x\text{ miles}}=\frac{0.8\text{ gallons}}{1\text{ gallon}}$

Solving for x:

$\begin{gathered} 27.2\cdot1=0.8\cdot x \\ \frac{27.2}{0.8}=x \\ 34\text{ = x} \end{gathered}$

Silver car's mileage: 34 miles per gallon

c. Silver car