Question

Brad measured a city park and made a scale drawing. He used the scale 8 centimeters : 3 meters. The soccer field is 160 centimeters wide in the drawing. How wide is the actual field?

Answer 1

From the statement of the problem, we know that the relationship between real-world measures and drawing measures is:

$\begin{gathered} \text{ drawing measure }\colon\text{ real-world measure ,} \\ 8\operatorname{cm}\colon3m\text{.} \end{gathered}$

Now, to find how many meters are 160 cm in the drawing, we multiply the relation above by 160/8, so we have 160 cm at the left:

$\begin{gathered} \text{ drawing measure }\colon\text{ real-world measure ,} \\ \frac{160}{8}\cdot8\operatorname{cm}\colon\frac{160}{8}\cdot3m, \\ 160\operatorname{cm}\colon20\cdot3m, \\ 160\operatorname{cm}\colon60m\text{.} \end{gathered}$

Answer

If the field measures 160 cm in the drawing, it measures 60 m in the real world.