Question

The Frostburg-Truth bus travels on a straight road from Frostburg Mall to Sojourner Truth Park. The mall is 4 miles east and 4 miles north of the City Center. The park is 2 miles west and 4 miles south of the Center. How far is it from the mall to the park to the nearest tenth of a mile?

Answer 1

It is important to understand that route from the center to the mall and from the center to the Truth Park creates triangles and the straight road through which the bus travels is actually the hypotenuse of the triangles. Basically the addition of the length of the two hypotenuses will yield the correct result.
Length of the first hypotenuse = square root [(4)^2 + (4)^2]
= 5.657 miles
Length of the second hypotenuse = square root [(2)^2 + (2)^2]
= 4.472 miles
The distance between the mall and the park = 5.657 + 4.472 miles
= 10.129 miles
= 10.1 miles
I hope the answer comes to your help.

Answer 2

The paths from the center (city) to the park, and from the center to the mall all create triangles, with the two hypotenuses lined up to be the straight road the bus travels on. Adding the lengths of both hypotenuses would yield the correct answer. This is shown below:

c1^2 = 4^2 + 4^2
c1 = 5.657

c2^2 = 2^2 + 4^2
c2 = 4.472

Total length traveled by bus = 4.472 + 5.657 = 10.129 miles = 10.1 miles