Question

The pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail went about 2,000 miles while traveling an average of 12 miles per day. How many days did it take to travel the entire trail

Answer 1

We are told that the group traveled an average of 12 miles per day. So, for example, after 1 day of travel, the traveled distance would be 12. After day two, they would have traveled 12 extra miles. That is

`12+12=24\text{ = 2}\cdot12`

So note that to calculate the traveled distance, we take the number of days and multiply it by the average rate of miles per day (12 miles per day). Let x be the total amount of days the group took to travel 2000 miles. So , according to what we just described, we have the equation

`x\cdot12=2000`

so, by dividing both sides by 12 we get

`x=(2000)/(12)=(1000)/(6)=(500)/(3)=166.666`

so, the group took about 167 to travel the entire trail.