Wait, I'm in Europe and my car only tells my distance traveled in kilometers! But I'm used to a units of distance devised by the Romans to measure the average length of 1000 paces of a soldier (the "mile")! How do I operate?
This tutorial is about the fundamental skill of unit conversion. Sal's cousin Nadia being a bit confused with this was actually the reason why he started tutoring her (which led to the creation of the Khan Academy).
Sometimes we have different units of measure and are asked to add them up. The answer can't be stated in ALL units so we have to pick one unit of measure. In this example, you'll practice that scenario with us.
We're moving between units of weight in this word problem. Ever get in an elevator with a bunch people and wonder to yourself, "How many people can this elevator safely hold?" Yeah, us too. You can solve that problem now.
The challenge in a word problem sometimes is knowing which numbers to choose when creating a simple equation. In this unit conversion word problem we'll answer the common question: "How much will a road trip cost me in gas?"
Remember that it's always easier to convert everything to like units before tackling a unit conversion word problem. That way your comparing apples to apples. Go for it...we'll explain as we work through it!