Ethan drew a scale drawing of the high school. The scale of the drawing was 6 centimeters = 9 meters. What is the scale factor of the drawing?

Simplify your answer and write it as a fraction.

1 answer

To find the scale factor of the drawing, we begin with the scale provided: 6 centimeters = 9 meters.

We can express this as a fraction:

\[ \text{Scale Factor} = \frac{\text{Length in drawing (cm)}}{\text{Actual Length (m)}} \]

Substituting the values gives us:

\[ \text{Scale Factor} = \frac{6 \text{ cm}}{9 \text{ m}} \]

To simplify this fraction, we need to convert the meters to centimeters since we're comparing lengths in the same units. We know that 1 meter = 100 centimeters, so:

\[ 9 \text{ m} = 9 \times 100 \text{ cm} = 900 \text{ cm} \]

Now, we can substitute this back into our scale factor:

\[ \text{Scale Factor} = \frac{6 \text{ cm}}{900 \text{ cm}} \]

This fraction can be simplified by dividing both the numerator and the denominator by 6:

\[ \text{Scale Factor} = \frac{6 \div 6}{900 \div 6} = \frac{1}{150} \]

Thus, the simplified scale factor of the drawing is:

\[ \boxed{\frac{1}{150}} \]