How much did the area really decrease?

Question

The zoom function on a copy machine to reduce the size of a 12 inches x 8 inches image to 8 inches x 5 inches. By how much did the area of the image decrease?

Answer 1

Paula, how do we find area?  l x w, right?  The area of the original is 96 square inches.  The area of the second is 40 square inches.

 

Your answer could be 56 square inches, since 96 - 40 = 56.

 

In a zoom function, though, it usually works with multiples, so we'd put the difference/the original.  If we put 56/96, we get 7/12 = .58 = 58%.  Any of those could be your answer, depending on what level you are at.

 

Does this help?