Question

HELP PLEASE I DONT UNDER STAND IT! THANK YOU FOR WHOEVER HELPS

Answer 1

40 feet

Explanation:

“At a certain time of day, a telephone pole casts a shadow 20 feet long, and a person 6 feet tall casts a shadow 3 feet long. In feet, what is the height of the telephone pole?”

1. We can set up two fractions to represent the things we know and don't know. Let's put the length of the shadow on the top, and the height of the thing making the shadow on the bottom.
2. We can represent this with
   `(person/pole)/(shadow)`
3. We know the height of the person but not the pole, so it will look like
   `(6)/(3 (shadow length))` or just
   `(6)/(3)` since we put the shadow length on the bottom.
4. We know the length of the pole's shadow but not it's height, so now we can set up our whole equation as
   `(6)/(3)` =
   `(?)/(20)`
5. We can cross multiply and then divide that number by 3 to get our missing variable.
6. 20 • 6 = 120
7. 120 ÷ 3 = 40

If I am incorrect in my reasoning, please let me know so that I can plan better for my future answers. Have an amazing day.