Question

Imara used these steps to find the length of the hypotenuse of the right triangle.

3 squares are positioned to form a right triangle. The small square is labeled 15, medium square is 20, and large square is not labeled.

Step 1: Find the area of the square with side lengths of 20: 400
Step 2: Find the area of the square with side lengths of 15: 225
Step 3: Find the sum of the areas of the two squares: 625
Step 4: State the length of the hypotenuse: 625

Which best describes Imara’s error?
She should have found the area of the square with side lengths of 15 first.
She did not correctly calculate the area of the square with side lengths of 15.
She should have found the sum of 15 and 20 and then squared the sum.
She did not find the side lengths of the square with an area of 625.

Answer 1

The best description of Imara’s error is:

**She did not find the side lengths of the square with an area of 625.**

Imara correctly calculated the areas of the squares and summed them, but she incorrectly stated the length of the hypotenuse. The hypotenuse is the square root of the sum of the areas (625), not the value of the sum itself. The correct length of the hypotenuse would be the square root of 625, which is 25.