Question

You have been asked to build a scale model of your school out of toothpicks. Imagine your school is 30 feet tall. Your scale is 1 ft:1.26 cm.

If a toothpick is 6.3 cm tall, how many toothpicks tall will your model be?

The model will be
toothpicks tall.

Your mother is out of toothpicks, and suggests you use cotton swabs instead. You measure them, and they are 7.5 cm tall. How many cotton swabs tall will your model be? If necessary, round your answer to the nearest whole number.

The model will be approximately
cotton swabs tall.

Answer 1

6 toothpicks

5 cotton swabs

Explanation:

The height of your scale model is 30 feet * 1.26 cm/foot = 37.8 cm

You need 37.8 cm / 6.3 cm/toothpick = 6 toothpicks to build your model.

When using cotton swabs, the height of your model will be 37.8 cm / 7.5 cm/cotton swab = 5.04 cotton swabs.

Rounding to the nearest whole number, you will need 5 cotton swabs to build your model.

So the answer is:

6 toothpicks

5 cotton swabs