Question

The length of a piece of paper is 8.5 inches. useing scissors, you reduce the length of the paper to 4.25 inches. what is the scale factor of the dilation?

Answer 1

you halved the length (8.5/4.25=2) so it was "scaled" by a factor of (1/2)=0.5

Answer 2

original paper is 8.5 inches
the dilated paper is 4.25 inches

the scale factor is what u multiply the original by to get to the dilated.

so 8.5 times what is 4.25
8.5x = 4.25...divide both sides by 8.5
x = 4.25 / 8.5
x = 0.5 (or 1/2) <== ur scale factor