On a cross country trip a traveler drove 3,870 miles. If the trip took 8 days what was the average number of miles driven per day (to the nearest whole mile)?

Question

Finding the mean or average

Answer 1

In order to find the average in this case we need to divide the total number of miles driven by the total number of days 

 

Mean (Average) = 3,870 / 8

 

 

= 483.75

 

= 484 miles to the nearest whole  rounding up

Answer 2

You may be confused by the wording of the problem. "Average" used to be something like

 

(number 1 + number 2) / 2

 

But 'average' has a slightly different meaning here (it means 'overall'). Simply divide the total number of miles by the number of days to find the number of miles driven per day.

 

3873 (miles)/ 8 (days) = 483.75 (mi/day)

 

The problems asks you to round to the nearest mile, so that would be 484 mi/day.

 

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions about this.