Spencer draws a rectangle to represent the size of the city block where he lives. The rectangle is labeled in inches. Spencer decides he wants to make a smaller scale drawing of the rectangle in which the width is just 1.5 inches long. What will be the length of the rectangle in Spencer's new scale drawing? Write your answer in decimal form. (1 point)
wrong
Since the width of the new scale drawing is 1.5 inches, we can set up the proportion:
original width / original length = new width / new length
We know that the original width is the width of the city block and the new width is 1.5 inches. Let's represent the original length as x, and set up the proportion:
x / 1.5 = original width / original length
To solve for x, we can cross multiply:
x * original length = 1.5 * original width
Now let's substitute the values we know. Let's represent the width of the city block as w:
x * l = 1.5 * w
The length of the city block is represented by the same w, so we can write:
x * w = 1.5 * w
To isolate x, divide both sides of the equation by w:
x = 1.5
Therefore, the length of the rectangle in Spencer's new scale drawing is 1.5 inches.