SOLUTION: With a full tank of gas, you can drive 485 miles and your car can go 19 miles per gallon. Write an equation to model this situation (use m for miles you can drive and g for gall

Algebra ->  Linear-equations -> SOLUTION: With a full tank of gas, you can drive 485 miles and your car can go 19 miles per gallon. Write an equation to model this situation (use m for miles you can drive and g for gall      Log On


   



Question 1197687: With a full tank of gas, you can drive 485 miles and your car can go 19 miles per gallon.
Write an equation to model this situation (use m for miles you can drive and g for gallons in the tank).

Found 3 solutions by ewatrrr, Theo, ikleyn:
Answer by ewatrrr(24785) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Hi  
Mileage is+19%28mi%2Fgal%29 
Using m for miles  and g for gallons in the tank
     mi = +%2819%28mi%2Fgal%29g%29 
     mi = 19g
As to the Units: +mi+=+%28mi%2Fcross%28gal%29%29%2Across%28gal%29
 Naturally Your answer m  would be in mi

Wish You the Best in your Studies.


Answer by Theo(13342) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
this is very simple to solve arithmetically.
if you can drive 485 miles on a full tank of gas and you can go 19 miles per gallon, then the tank must be able to hold 485 / 19 gallons of gas when it is full.
in general, the full tank can hold m / (m/g).
an equation would be:
f = m / (m/g)
f is the number of gallons the tank can hold.
m is the number of miles you can drive on a full tank.
m/g is the number of miles per gallon you can get.
when m = 485 and m/g = 19, the equation becomes:
f = 485/19 = 25.52631579 gallons.
that's how many gallons the tank can hold, given that you can go 485 miles on a full tank of gas and you get exactly 19 miles per gallon.

in general, the tank capacity is fixed and the number of miles per gallon you cana get on that full tank is determined by you drive and the driving conditions.

assuming the tank can hold exactly 25 gallons of gas, then if you fill up the tank and go 485 miles, your miles per gallon will be based on the same equation as shown below:
f = m / (m/g)
in this case, you know that the full tank holds exactly 25 gallons.
the equation becomes:
25 = 485 / (m/g)
solve for m/g to get:
m/g = 485 /25 = 19.4 miles per gallon.
this says that, if you were able to drive 485 miles on that full tank of gas, then you were getting 19.4 miles per gallon.



Answer by ikleyn(52787) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
With a full tank of gas, you can drive 485 miles and your car can go 19 miles per gallon.
Write an equation to model this situation (use m for miles you can drive and g for gallons in the tank).
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This problem requests you to translate English words from the post to Math.


My translation is this


    m = 19*g,   under the condition  0 <= m <= 485.


The problem does not request you to do something above of it.

So, what @Theo does in his post after establishing an equation, is irrelevant to the problem.

All that they want from you is to create an equation and write the constraint.