Question

Error Analysis  Jermaine​'s farm has a field in the shape of a right triangle as shown. He needs to find the area of the field to decide how much fertilizer to buy. To find the area of the​ field, he composes the triangle and a matching triangle into a rectangle. Jermaine calculates that he needs enough fertilizer to cover 100 comma 000 m squared. Find the correct area of the field. What error did Jermaine ​make?
nbsp nbsp
200 m
500 m
Question content area bottom
Part 1
The area of the field is
  
enter your response here msquared.

Answer 1

Area = 1/2 × base × height = 1/2 × 500 m × 200 m = 50,000 m².

Jermaine formed the rectangle from two congruent right triangles (area 500×200 = 100,000 m²) but forgot to take half of that rectangle. He used the rectangle’s area instead of the triangle’s.