what is the perimeter of a polygon with vertices at (-2,1),(-2,4),(2,7),(6,4),and (6,1)

Question

i like cats and dogs and i need help on this question

Answer 1

Hi Tasha from Detroit, MI...hope you had a great day at school today.

I am here to help you and get you started. I won't give you the answer but give you the tools to work to solve the problem.

First of all, you will need to plot this coordinate points on a coordinate plane[graph paper].

After you plot this coordinate points, you will  find that each of the vertices creates a 5 sided polygon, because of the 5 points. 

So now you know what the polygon looks like, you have the coordinate points, but we don't know the lengths of the side of the polygon.

What we do know is to coordinate points of each of the vertices. So how do you calculate the length from what we know.

Do you know how we do that?

Do you remember something called 'The Distance Formula'.

 

Here is the Distance Formula:     √(x₂ - x₁)² + (y₂ - y₁)²

 

So we take the first two coordinates:

     (-2,1) and  (-2,4)        we will label them like so  (x₁,y₁) and (x₂,y₂) 

    (x₁,y₁) and (x₂,y₂)      the first coordinates are are starting point and 

                                      the second coordinates are the end point.

                                      Substitute them into the Distance Formula

 

       √(-2 - -2)² + (4 - 1)²  =  √(0)  +(3)²    =   √9 = 3

So the distance between the coordinates (-2,1) and (-2,4) is 3.

Now it is your turn to do the remaining 4 points, calculate the distance between each point, then add up each of the distances, which will give you the perimeter.

Now you will be a pro at this.

Let me know if you have more trouble.

Contact me on Wyzant.