Question

Use a strategy to solve this problem. (Note: I seriously need help and this is due on Sunday!!)

Answer 1

You may feel somewhat overwhelmed right now, because this question is giving the reader lots of information and tasks in a short paragraph. Let's break it down into pieces.

1. First, let's find the ratio of the lengths.

Since the ratio is 7 to 3, we can find the length of each licorice piece by setting its proportion over 10, since that is the sum of the ratio. Thus, one licorice piece has a length of 60 * 7/10 = 42 cm and the other has a length of 60 * 3/10 = 18 cm.

2. Now, let's create our squares.

Each piece is bent to form a square. In other words, the pieces is split into 4 equal sides. Thus, we can divide our lengths by 4. The first piece of licorice made into a square has side lengths of 42/4 = 10.5 cm. The second piece of licorice has side lengths of 18/4 = 4.5 cm.

3. Finding the area of our squares.

Now, all we need to do is find the sum of the areas of the squares. The first square has an area of $10.5^2 = 110.25$ cm^2 and the second square has an area of $4.5^2 = 20.25$ cm^2. Thus, our answer is 130.5 cm^2.