Question

Suki has a 9 foot by 12 foot oriental rug. She is making a scale drawing of the rug that is 1 foot long. How many inches wide should the diagram be?

Answer 1

The ratio of the measurements will be the same, so set them up as fractions that are equal to each other; x represents the width we are looking for.
9ft/12ft=xft/1ft
Just cross multiply.
9*1=12*x
9=12x
(divide both sides by 12)
x=9/12
(simplify)
x=3/4 ft

Answer 2

16 inches.

Explanation:

Let x represent the width of the drawing.

We have been given that Suki has a 9 foot by 12 foot oriental rug. She is making a scale drawing of the rug that is 1 foot long. We will use proportions to solve our given problem as:

`\frac{\text{Width of drawing}}{\text{Length of drawing}}=\frac{\text{Width of rug}}{\text{Length of rug}}`

Let us convert our given sides into inches.

1 feet = 12 inches.

9 feet = 9*12 inches = 108 inches

12 feet = 12*12 inches = 144 inches

Upon substituting our given values in our proportion, we will get:

`(x)/(12)=(144)/(108)`

`(x)/(12)\cdot 12=(144)/(108)\cdot 12`

`x=(144)/(9)\cdot 1`

`x=16`

Therefore, the diagram should be 16 inches wide.