A monument outside city hall has dimensions as shown in the figure below. If one gallon of paint can cover , how many gallons of paint must be bought in order to paint the monument? Assume that the base of the monument cannot be painted and that paint can be bought only by the gallon.

Question

A monument outside city hall has dimensions as shown in the figure below. If one gallon of paint can cover , how many gallons of paint must be bought in order to paint the monument? Assume that the base of the monument cannot be painted and that paint can be bought only by the gallon.

14ft 22ft. 12ft. 12ft

Answer 1

To find the surface area of the monument that needs to be painted, we need to calculate the area of all four sides.

There are two sides with dimensions 14ft x 22ft, which have an area of 14ft x 22ft = 308 square feet each.
There are also two sides with dimensions 12ft x 12ft, which have an area of 12ft x 12ft = 144 square feet each.

So the total area that needs to be painted is 2(308) + 2(144) = 616 + 288 = 904 square feet.

Since 1 gallon of paint can cover 350 square feet, we will need 904/350 = 2.583 gallons.

Since we can only buy paint by the gallon, we will need to buy 3 gallons of paint to cover the entire monument.