Kayla P. answered • 11/14/18
Tutor available for grades K-8
Hi there! So one way you could do this would be to create a proportion. As numerator, you would put 10, for the number of gallons of gas. For the denominator, you would put 180, for the number of miles. So the first proportion should look like this: 10/180. For the second numerator, we do not know how much gas is needed, so you would put an x. For the second denominator, you would put 540, for the number of miles. The second proportion would look like this: x/540.To solve for x, you would write this equation: 10/180 = x/540. These fractions are equal because they are proportionate. To solve for x, you would cross multiply. This equation would then look like this: 180x = 5400. To solve for x, you would divide both sides by 180, and the equation would look like this: x = 5400/180. x = 30,which is the number of gallons of gas used for the 540 mile trip.
