Question

A blueprint for a house has a scale of 1:5 feet. The living room has a length of 2.5 inches and a width of 3 inches. What is the actual area of the living room?

Answer 1

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation:

Set this up as a proportion, with inches on the top and feet on the bottom for our scale.  We will find the actual length first, then we'll find the width.

$\frac{in}{ft}:\frac{1}{5}=\frac{2.5}{x}$

Cross multiply to get that the actual length is 5(2.5) = 12.5 feet.  Now for the width:

$\frac{in}{ft}:\frac{1}{5}=\frac{3}{x}$

Cross multiply to get that the actual width is 5(3) = 15 feet.

If you want the area of the room, multiply the length times the width to get

A = 15(12.5)

A = 187.5 feet squared