To determine how much gas is needed to travel 120 miles given the car needs 30 gallons of gas to travel 400 miles, we can follow these steps:
1. First, we find out how many miles the car can travel per gallon. This is known as the car's gas mileage. To calculate this, we divide the total distance that can be traveled on 30 gallons of gas by the number of gallons:
Gas mileage (miles per gallon) = Total distance / Number of gallons
Gas mileage = 400 miles / 30 gallons
Gas mileage = 13.333... miles per gallon.
2. Now that we know the car can travel approximately 13.333 miles per gallon, we can calculate how many gallons of gas are required to travel 120 miles. To do this, we divide the distance we want to travel by the car's gas mileage:
Gallons needed = Distance to travel / Gas mileage
Gallons needed = 120 miles / 13.333... miles per gallon.
3. Performing this calculation:
Gallons needed = 120 miles / 13.333... miles per gallon
Gallons needed ≈ 9 gallons.
Therefore, the car would need approximately 9 gallons of gas to travel 120 miles.
