Cindy made a scale drawing of a farm. The scale she used was 6 centimeter : 7 meters. If the actual length of the goat pen was 31 meters, how long is the pen in the drawing?

Question

round to the nearest hundredth

Answer 1

When creating scale drawings, it is important to remember that the ratio of a length in the drawing to the length in real life is constant for every part of the drawing. In this case, the ratio for each side of the pen in the drawing to each side of the pen in real life is 6cm : 7m.

Begin by setting up a proportion, (6cm)/(7m) = (x)/(31m), where x is the length of the pen in the drawing.

Then, cross multiply so that you now have (6cm)(31m) = (x)(7m), or (186 * m * cm) = x * 7 * m.

Divide both sides of the equation to find x. The meters on both sides cancel out and you are left with

(186 * cm)/7 = x, meaning that

x = 26.57 cm