World Problem Solving

Question

A mouse wanders through a maze 3 feet East, 4 feet North, 2 feet East, & then 5 feet North. How far is the mouse from its starting point?

Round to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

Draw a picture:

Then you can see that the distance traveled is like the hypotenuse of this triangle:

so, using the Pythagorean Theorem, the distance (d) can be calculated from 9² + 5² = d² or d = √106 which is approx 10.3 feet