Question

Solve using a proportion. Round to the nearest hundredth.

Sammy drew a picture of a ladder leaning against a house. She drew it using a scale of 1.5 inches = 4 feet. If the ladder in the picture was 12 inches long, how long was the actual ladder?

Answer 1

The length of the ladder would be 32 feet.

Explanation:

In order to find the missing value, we create a proportion. We can do this by making two fractions -- the numerator being the depicted length and the denominator being the actual length.

(1.5/4) = (12/x)

Since we don't know the actual length of the ladder, we put it in as x. Now we can cross multiply to solve.

(1.5/4) = (12/x)

1.5*x = 4*12

1.5x = 48

x = 32