Final answer:
The total distance traveled is the sum of all individual distances covered during a trip. Displacement, on the contrary, measures the change in position and may be zero for round trips. The total distance can be calculated regardless of the average speed, although it helps to determine the duration of travel.
Step-by-step explanation:
The total distance traveled during an activity such as going from one place to another and returning back to the starting point is the sum of all distances covered in the entire trip. This is different from the displacement, which only considers the change in position from the start to the endpoint. For instance, during a 30-minute round trip to the store, if someone covers a distance of 6 km, that is the total distance traveled. Even if the average speed is given, such as 12 km/h, it does not affect the total distance traveled but could be used to calculate the time taken for the trip. When someone ends a trip at the same location they started from, the displacement is zero, because their position hasn't changed.
Therefore, in case scenarios provided like the SDC or any other trip, to calculate the total distance, one would simply add up all the individual distances between points irrespective of the direction. If the trip was a round trip, we conclude that the distance there and back is the total distance. However, if the scenario involved, say, a child being 50 meters ahead of a truck, and the truck covers a distance dAB + dBC meters, the distance traveled by the truck does not necessarily relate to the initial question about total distance, unless the locations A and B and B to C are part of the round trip in question. Similarly, in mapping problems where scale is used, the physical distance on the map can be converted to actual distance traveled using the given scale ratio.