Question

The areas of two similar triangles are 80 square feet and 500 square feet.

Answer 1

So in order to get the small rectangle big we need a whole number bigger that 1 or an improper fraction so let's cross out the answer choices that don't meet the above requirements!!

A and C are not improper fractions and are less than 1 so they're wrong!!

We can solve by making an equation,

$80x = 500$

So 80 × what will give us 500.

We can do this two ways and I'll show you both!!

$\frac{80x}{80} = \frac{500}{80}$

We can divide both sides by 80 and get,

$x = \frac{25}{4} = 6.25$

Which is answer choice B which makes sense since answer choice D is too small.

Or, we can plug in our two answer choices and see if it checks out to be 500!!

$80( \frac{25}{4} ) = 500$

The above statement is true!!

$80( \frac{5}{2} ) = 500$

The above statement is false since 80 × 5/2 = 200, not 500, the number we need!!