Question

A taxi ride cost \[\$29.40\]. The driver charged \[\$3\] plus \[\$2\] per mile travelled. How far did the taxi travel on this trip?

Answer 1

Hint: We are given the taxi fare, we know the base fare and the cost per mile and we have to find the distance travelled for this fare. We can suppose this unknown distance as x. The equation we got from the above is, \[\text{Total fare}=3+2x\]. Substituting the required values, we will get the value of x, which is the distance covered in the journey.

Complete step by step solution:
According to the given question, we are given the total cost of a taxi ride. We are also the base fare of a taxi ride as well as cost per mile travelled. Using the above given values, we have to find the distance travelled by the taxi for the total cost of the ride generated.
Let the distance travelled by the taxi be \[x\] mile.
So, the total cost of a taxi ride can be generalized as,
Total cost = Base fare + (cost per mile \[\times \] distance travelled)
According to the question, we have,
\[29.40=3+2x\]-----(1)
Now, we will rearrange the equation (1) in terms of \[x\], we get,
\[\Rightarrow 2x=29.40-3\]
Solving the above expression, we get,
\[\Rightarrow 2x=26.40\]
We will now divide \[26.40\] by 2 and we will get,
\[\Rightarrow x=\dfrac{26.40}{2}\]
\[\Rightarrow x=13.2miles\]

Therefore, the distance travelled by the taxi is 13.2 miles.

Note: The question should not be misinterpreted and wrongly written. \[\$3\] is the base price and is a mandatory fare irrespective of the distance travelled whereas \[\$2\] is the cost for per mile covered. The equation of the above should be correctly made as the distance travelled will be found using this equation only.