Question

A construction worker is looking at blueprints drawn to a 1/20 scale and notices that a wall on the blueprints is 0.5 feet by 0.25 feet. He claims that the area of the actual wall should be 20 times that area that it is on the blueprints. Explain if he is correct or incorrect.

Answer 1

The worker was wrong. It will be 400 times.

Explanation:

A construction worker is looking at blueprints drawn to a 1/20 scale and notices that a wall on the blueprints is 0.5 feet by 0.25 feet.

So, the 0.5 feet of length will be (0.5 × 20) = 10 feet and the 0.25 feet of length will be (0.25 × 20) = 5 feet in actual dimensions.

So, the actual area of the wall will be = (10 × 5) = 50 sq. ft.

And the area of the wall according to the drawing was = (0.5 × 0.25) = 0.125 sq. feet.

Therefore, the actual area of the wall will be
`(50)/(0.125) = 400` times than the drawing.

Hence, the worker was wrong. (Answer)