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Answer: 1444</h3>
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Explanation:
Consider a square on paper that is 3 inches by 3 inches. It's area would be 3*3 = 9 square inches.
The ratio 1 to 38 means that 1 inch on paper corresponds to 38 inches in real life (assuming the "1 to 38" doesn't have any verbal units attached to it; if so, then refer to the note below). So a 3 by 3 square corresponds to a 114 by 114 square because 3*38 = 114.
The area of the second larger square is 114*114 = 12,996 square inches.
Now divide the two areas: (12,996)/(9) = 1444
It's probably not entirely obvious, but through a bit of playing around with various numbers, you should find that 38^2 = 1444. It's not a coincidence that this happens. The linear scale factor is 38 which means the area scale factor is 38^2 = 1444.
In short, the larger square in real life has area that is 1444 times that of its scaled down counterpart.
Or put another way:
large area = 1444*(small area)
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Side note: This all assumes that the numbers in "1 to 38" are both the same unit. If we had a mixed ratio of units like "1 inch to 38 feet", then the answer would be different. You would need to convert from feet to inches, and then follow the steps above to get a different answer.
