Question

michele wanted to measure the height of her school's flagpole. she placed a mirror on the ground 48 ft from the flagpole, then walked backwards until she was able to see the top of the pole in the mirror. Her eyes were 5ft about the ground and she was 12 ft from the mirror. using similar triangles what is the height of the flag pole

Answer 1

Answer: 20 ft

Step-by-step explanation:

Let the height of flag pole be x.

From the question, we can see there is a directly proportional relationship between the height and distance because they are making similar triangles such that

$\frac{\text{height of flagpole}}{\text{distance of mirror from flagpole}}=\frac{\text{height of Michele}}{\text{distance of mirror from Michele}}$

$\\\\\Rightarrow\frac{x}{48}=\frac{5}{12}\\\\\Rightarrow\ x=\frac{5\times48}{12}\\\\\Rightarrow\ x=20\ ft.$

Hence, the height of flagpole = 20 ft.

Answer 2

The mirror is 48 feet from the flag pole and she is 12 feet away from the mirror. 48/12=4
The flag pole is going to be 4x as tall as she is. Since she is about 5 foot. 5*4=20. The flag pole is 20 ft.