Question
A triangular flag has a height of 15 inches and a base length of 25 inches. Magnolia makes a scale drawing of the flag in which the base length is 10 inches. What is the area of Magnolia’s scale drawing? Solve the problem by computing the actual area from the scale drawing. Show your work.
To find the area of Magnolia's scale drawing, we first need to find the scale factor by which the dimensions have been reduced.
The original triangle has a height of 15 inches and a base length of 25 inches, resulting in an area of 1/2 * 15 * 25 = 187.5 square inches.
In the scale drawing, the base length is 10 inches. The scale factor is therefore 10/25 = 2/5.
To find the height of the scale drawing, we multiply the scale factor by the original height:
15 * 2/5 = 6 inches
Now we can find the area of the scale drawing using the reduced dimensions:
1/2 * 6 * 10 = 30 square inches
Therefore, the area of Magnolia's scale drawing is 30 square inches.