Question

On a map, the distance between two towns is 3.4 inches. The map scale is 2 inches: 25 miles. What is the actual distance between these towns?

Answer 1

For this question we can solve it by setting up a proportion:

$\frac{2inches}{25 miles}= \frac{3.4inches}{x}$

Now we can solve for x to find the total distance between the towns. Let's cross multiply and solve for x:

$2x=85$
$x=42.5miles$

So now we know that the total distance between the towns is 42.5 miles.