Two equations are written to express how far a car can go when driving on different roads. On road 1 the car can go 60 miles in 2 hours. On road 2 the car can go 90 miles in 4 hours. Write an equation where y is the distance in miles and x is the time in hours to represent the motion of the faster car.

1 answer

We can start by finding the rate of the car on each road.

For Road 1, the car can go 60 miles in 2 hours. Therefore, the rate of the car on Road 1 is 60 miles / 2 hours = 30 miles per hour.

For Road 2, the car can go 90 miles in 4 hours. Therefore, the rate of the car on Road 2 is 90 miles / 4 hours = 22.5 miles per hour.

Since we want to represent the motion of the faster car, we'll use the rate of the car on Road 1 (30 mph).

The equation to represent the motion of the faster car is:

y = 30x

where y is the distance in miles and x is the time in hours.