Steven made a scale drawing of a theater. The stage is 5 inches wide in the drawing. The actual stage is 20 feet wide. What is the scale of the drawing?

1 answer

To find the scale of the drawing, we need to compare the width of the stage in the drawing to its actual width.

  1. Convert the actual width from feet to inches: Since there are 12 inches in a foot, we can convert 20 feet to inches: \[ 20 \text{ feet} \times 12 \text{ inches/foot} = 240 \text{ inches} \]

  2. Set up the ratio for the scale: The scale can be expressed as a ratio of the width in the drawing to the actual width: \[ \text{Scale} = \frac{\text{Width in drawing}}{\text{Actual width}} = \frac{5 \text{ inches}}{240 \text{ inches}} \]

  3. Simplify the ratio: We can simplify \(\frac{5}{240}\) by dividing both the numerator and denominator by 5: \[ \frac{5 \div 5}{240 \div 5} = \frac{1}{48} \]

Therefore, the scale of the drawing is: \[ \text{Scale} = 1 : 48 \] This means that 1 inch on the drawing represents 48 inches (or 4 feet) in reality.