My car gets 13 miles per gallon in the city and 30 miles per gallon on the highway. Suppose I used 15.867 gallons of gas and got an average of 15 miles per gallon for the trip.
I assume you want to know how many miles in city and highway. Well, take a look at the data:
miles = gals * mi/gal so
total miles: 15.867*15 = 238
If there were c city miles, then the rest (238-x) were highway miles. So,
x/13 + (238-x)/30 = 15.867
x = 182
so,
182 city miles
56 hwy miles
To solve this problem, we need to determine the distance traveled in both the city and on the highway. Let's denote the distance traveled in the city as "x" and the distance traveled on the highway as "y."
We know that the car gets 13 miles per gallon in the city, so the distance traveled in the city can be calculated by dividing the total amount of gas used for the trip by the mileage in the city:
Distance traveled in the city = (Total gas used) / (Mileage in city)
= (15.867 gallons) / (13 miles per gallon)
= 1.22 miles
Similarly, the distance traveled on the highway can be calculated using the same formula:
Distance traveled on the highway = (Total gas used) / (Mileage on highway)
= (15.867 gallons) / (30 miles per gallon)
= 0.53 miles
Now, we can use these distances to determine the average miles per gallon for the entire trip. Since the total distance traveled is the sum of the distances in the city and on the highway, we have:
Total distance traveled = Distance in city + Distance on highway
= 1.22 miles + 0.53 miles
= 1.75 miles
The average miles per gallon for the trip is the total distance traveled divided by the total gas used:
Average miles per gallon = Total distance traveled / Total gas used
= 1.75 miles / 15.867 gallons
≈ 0.11 miles per gallon
Therefore, the average miles per gallon for the trip is approximately 0.11 miles per gallon.