To find the cost of each gallon of gas, we divide the total amount Max paid by the total number of gallons he purchased.
Max paid $24.05 for 7.4 gallons of gas.
The calculation is as follows:
\[ \text{Cost per gallon} = \frac{\text{Total cost}}{\text{Total gallons}} = \frac{24.05}{7.4} \]
Now performing the division:
- Calculate \( \frac{24.05}{7.4} \):
- When we do the division \( 24.05 ÷ 7.4 \), we can simplify it to \( 240.5 ÷ 74 \) as shown in the problem statement, since Max multiplied both the numerator and the denominator by 10.
Now we can perform the long division of \( 240.5 \) by \( 74 \):
- \( 74 \) goes into \( 240 \) approximately \( 3 \) times, because \( 74 \times 3 = 222 \).
- Subtract \( 222 \) from \( 240 \) to get \( 18 \).
- Bring down the \( 5 \) to make \( 185 \).
- Now, \( 74 \) goes into \( 185 \) approximately \( 2 \) times, because \( 74 \times 2 = 148 \).
- Subtract \( 148 \) from \( 185 \) to get \( 37 \).
- Therefore, the result of the division is \( 3.25 \).
Thus, the cost of each gallon of gas is:
\[ \text{Cost per gallon} = 3.25 \]
So, Max paid $3.25 for each gallon of gas.
The correct answer is: $3.25