Average length of a cars

Question

If there were 51 cars in a line th that stretched 505 feet,what is the average car length? Assume that the cars are lined bumper to bumper. Round your answer to the nearest tenth of foot.

Answer 1

For an average, the intent is to find how much one part affects the total. Since you are trying to find the average car length, you will want an end answer that is ultimately: length/car * (1 car)

So, for the average you will take the total length that all of the cars add up to (505 feet) and divide by the number of all of the cars.

This leads to: (505 feet) / 51 cars => 9.902 feet/car

So, for 1 car, you multiply by 1 car which cancels the "car" term: 9.902 feet/car * 1 car => 9.902 feet.

Then in order to round to the nearest 1/10th of a foot, you look at the first two decimal places (.90), and since the second digit is less than 5, you round down to .9.

Therefore, the average length of one car is: 9.9 feet