1. You are planning a trip from Erie, PA to Pittsburgh, PA to go see a Steelers game! On your map, 2 inches represents 50 miles. You measure the distance to be about 4.5 inches. About how many miles is it from Erie to Pittsburgh?

Solution:

We can set up a proportion:

Number of inches in scale = Number of measured inches

 Number of miles in scale       Number of actual miles

Plugging in numbers, we get:

  2   =  4.5

 50       x

Solving the proportion gives us:

2x = 50(4.5)

2x = 225

x = 112.5

It is approximately 113 miles from Erie to Pittsburgh.

2. Your basketball coach bought 20 bottles of water for your team for $25.80. How much did each bottle cost?

Again, we can set up a proportion:

Price of total bottles = Number of total bottles

  Price of one bottle              one bottle

Plugging in numbers gives us:

25.80 = 20

    x        1

Solving the proportion gives us:

20x = 25.80(1)

20x = 25.80

x = 1.29

Each bottle of water costs $1.29.