Question

Calculating the Scale Factor of a Reduction
On a coordinate plane, a line segment contains points (negative 4, 4) and (4, 2). Another line segment contains points (negative 2, 2) and (2, 1).

The ordered pair (–4, 4) is on the pre-image. A scale factor was applied to produce the image on the coordinate plane.

What is the scale factor?
1/4
1/2
2
4

Answer 1

Scale factor = 1/2.

Each coordinate of the pre-image is multiplied by 1/2: (-4, 4) → (-2, 2) and (4, 2) → (2, 1).