Points on a plane??

Question

Blocks of a city are represented on a coordinate plane. A person walks from point R (-3,7) to point S (-3,5) And then to point T (8,-5). Approximately how many blocks shorter is it to go directly from point R to T instead of going through S?

Answer 1

R to S = 2

S to T is

(-3,5) to (8,-5) is sqr(11^2 +10^2) = sqr221 = about 14.87

R to T

(-3,7) to (8,-5) is sqr(11^2+12^2) = sqr(121+144)=sqr265 = about 16.28

2+14.87 = 16.87

16.87-16.28 = 0.59 shorter going from R to T rather than R to S to T