Question

Claire built two similar wooden chests in the shape of rectangular prisms. She needed 6 pints of paint to cover the outside of the larger chest fully and 4 pints to cover the outside of the smaller chest. How much more volume does the larger chest contain?

Answer 1

The scale factor would be used in solving for the volume inside the larger chest. By definition, a scale factor is considered to be the ratio of similar sides of similar figures. By using this method:

Scale factor^² = 6/4 = 3/2 
Scale factor = √3 / √2 

The solution would yield to a final answer of 83.7 percent larger volume compared to the smaller chest.