Jessica measured a house and made a scale drawing. The dining room, which is 4 meters long in real life, is 1 millimeter long in the drawing. What is the drawing's scale factor?

Simplify your answer and write it as a fraction.

1 answer

To find the scale factor of the drawing, we need to compare the dimensions of the real-life object to the dimensions in the drawing.

In real life, the dining room is 4 meters long. We convert this measurement to millimeters for consistency, since the drawing's measurement is in millimeters.

1 meter is equal to 1000 millimeters. Therefore, 4 meters is:

\[ 4 \times 1000 = 4000 \text{ millimeters} \]

In the drawing, the dining room is represented as 1 millimeter.

Now we can find the scale factor by setting up the ratio of the real-life measurement to the drawing measurement:

\[ \text{Scale Factor} = \frac{\text{Real Life Length}}{\text{Drawing Length}} = \frac{4000 \text{ mm}}{1 \text{ mm}} = 4000 \]

To express this as a fraction:

\[ \text{Scale Factor} = \frac{4000}{1} \]

Thus, the drawing's scale factor is:

\[ \boxed{4000} \]