Question

A gallon of milk weighs eight pounds, so you wouldn’t try to carry three or four gallons home on your bicycle. Gasoline is a bit less dense than milk—oil floats on water—and 6 pounds per gallon of gasoline is about right. A typical U.S. “car” (whatever it is we drive—averaging somewhere between a Prius and a Hummer, and including a lot of pickup trucks and minivans) gets about 20 miles per gallon, and drives about 12,000 miles. So, how many gallons of gas per year? 12,000 gallons / year 6000 gallons / year 600 gallons / year 240,000 gallons / year

Answer 1

Answer:

• 600 gallons / year

Explanation:

The single question is about the amount of gallons of gas per year a typical U.S. "car" uses.

The relevant information to find how many gallons of gas per year a typical U.S. "car" uses is:

• unit consumption of gas per gallon: 20 miles per gallon: 20 miles / gallon, and

• number of miles the car drives: about 12,000 miles / year

The rest of the statement is anectodic and irrelevant to find the answer of the question.

Now, with the helpf of the units, you can set this relation:

• gallons / year = (miles / year) / (miles / gallon) . . . .  

        [miles are canceled and the resultant quotient equals gallon / year]

Substitute and compute:

• gallons / year = (12,000 miles / year) / (20 miles / gallon) =

                                 = 600 gallons / year

Hence, the answer is the third option 600 gallons / year.