Question

Three friends went on a road trip from Phoenix, AZ, to San Diego, CA.• Mark drove 50 percent of the distance• Jason drove 1/8 of the distance.• Andy drove the remainder of the distance.1. Andy thinks he drove 1/4 of the distance from Phoenix, AZ, to San Diego, CA. Is Andy correct? Usemathematics to justify your answer.2. The distance from Phoenix, AZ, to San Diego, CA, is 360 miles. How many miles did each person drive?

Answer 1

We are going to write D as the total distance that they traveled.

We know that:

Mark drove 50 percent of the distance this means that he drove 1/2*D = 0.5*D

Jason drove 1/8 of the distance thus means that he drove 1/8*D = 0.125*D

Now the distance left is D - 1/2*D - 1/8*D = 3/8*D = 0.375*D

So we know now that Andy drove 3/8 of the the total distance (D). So the answer is no, he drove 3/8 no 1/4.

Now having the total distance, we just need to replace D by 360 miles in each of the above equations, so we have that

Mark drove 1/2*(360 miles) = (360/2) miles = 180 miles

Jason drove 1/8*(360 miles) = (360/8) miles = 45 miles

Andy drove 3/8*(360 miles) =( (3*360)/8) miles = 135 miles

Now we confirm 180 + 45 +135 = 360.