Aunt's Ol' Jalopy
Math brain teasers require computations to solve.
After visiting my Great Aunt Annie, I travelled home in her old jalopy. The car was old and battered, it had a leak from the petrol tank, and I was stuck in second gear.
This meant that I could only travel along at a steady 30 miles per hour and managed a paltry 20 miles per gallon of fuel.
At the start of the journey I had placed exactly 10 gallons of fuel into the tank. I knew though, that the fuel tank lost fuel at the rate of half a gallon per hour.
Just as I arrived home, the car stopped because it had run out of fuel and I had only just made it.
How far was it from my Great Aunt's to my home?
Answer
150 miles.
I was travelling at 30mph at a rate of 20mpg, so I was using 1.5 gallons every hour for the driving itself. I was also losing 0.5 gallon every hour, so in total, I was using 2 gallons every hour. Therefore to use all of the 10 gallons I started with, I travelled for 5 hours.
5 hours at 30mph is 150 miles.
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Comments
Melanmel16  
Mar 28, 2012
| Great aunt Annie lol |
Babe 
Apr 24, 2012
| I did not even try. Did not like math in school and certainly was not going to bust my brain on this one. How about a real quiz that doesn't take us back to the class room!!  |
HABS2933  
Apr 24, 2012
| Great teaser, easily solvable. |
bestgirl
Apr 24, 2012
| Good one. |
dsjt
Apr 24, 2012
| Where did your aunt find a "jalopy" that jets 20 MPG? I wished my vehicle could get that. |
xdbtcp
Apr 24, 2012
| I figured 20 miles per gallon, and you had 10 gallons, so you went 200 miles...  |
xdbtcp
Apr 24, 2012
| Guess I shoulda read "the fuel tank lost fuel at the rate of half a gallon per hour."  |
gghali
Apr 24, 2012
| Great teaser! Lots of fun. |
wordmama
Apr 24, 2012
| I love math, even though it's not my field. I wanted to try it, but I couldn't figure out how to reconcile the mpg, the mph, and the fuel loss. The explanation was excellent; I'm disappointed in myself that I couldn't see it on my own! |
FatHead
Apr 24, 2012
| That was awesome. I'm glad I had as much practice as I did with high-school algebra and word problems. |
bradon182001
Apr 24, 2012
| Nice teaser, never hurts to practice a little math to keep the mind active. |
auntiesis
Apr 24, 2012
| I love math problems, but this one was way too easy. But I still loved it.  |
luluw5 
Apr 24, 2012
| this is supposed to b a brain teaser! not homework!  |
DarylK
May 25, 2012
| Ah, I shoud have read the question throughly. |
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