The Eddingtons have a 5 ft by 8 ft porch on the front of their house. They are building a similar porch on the back with doubled dimension. Find the area of the back porch.
So we can calculate the front porch area by multiplying the sides (5 ft)(8 ft)=40 ft^2 By doubling the dimensions it could mean one of two things 1. (40 ft^2) * 2 = 80 ft^2 [doubling area] 2. (5*2)(8*2) = 160 ft^2 [doubling dimensions of each side]
