How many miles, rounded to the nearest whole mile, can be driven over 7 days om a budget of $350?

Question

A car rental agency charges $0.35, per mile and $24 per day for a compact car.

Please provide step by step work.

Thank you.

Answer 1

I will assume that since the question mentions "over 7 days", the car will be rented for exactly 7 days and the miles are spread relatively evenly over the 7 days and there are no real issues with driving safety and other such considerations.

First of all, we know we will have 7 days of rental @ $24/day = $168. This amount needs to be subtracted from the budget so we will know how much money we have for miles.

$350 - $168 = $182

Now, we can divide that amount by the price per mile: $182 ÷ $0.35 = 520 miles total can be driven over 7 days.

If we wanted to illustrate the problem in the form of an equation it would look like this:

0.35X + (7 ∗ 24) = 350 where X is the number of miles driven.

Answer 2

For word problems like this one, put yourself (or your family if you can't drive yet) into the situation and figure it out as if it was a real scenario.

We know the max we can spend is $350.

They charge $24/day; you need it for 7 days, so that would be 24 X 7 = $168

We need to subtract the $168 from the $350. 350-168 = $182

This $182 represents the amount of money you can spend on the mileage. You can drive $0.35/mile.

If it was a $1/mile, then we would divided $182/$1 to get 182 total miles.

Because it's $0.35, we just put the 35 cents where we had the $1 in the above example.

$182/$0.35 = 520

You can go 520 miles. As you practice it, you'll be able to process this much faster.