Cara made a scale drawing of a house. In real life, the living room is 10 meters long. It is 4 millimeters long in the drawing. What is the drawing's scale factor?

Question

Simplify your answer and write it as a ratio, using a colon.

Answer 1

To find the scale factor of the drawing, we need to compare the length of the living room in real life to the length in the drawing.

The real-life length of the living room is 10 meters, and the length in the drawing is 4 millimeters.

First, we need to convert 10 meters into millimeters, since both measurements should be in the same unit.

1 meter = 1000 millimeters, so: 10 meters = 10 × 1000 = 10,000 millimeters.

Now we have:

• Real-life length = 10,000 millimeters
• Drawing length = 4 millimeters

Now, we can find the scale factor by forming the ratio of the real-life length to the drawing length:

Scale factor = Real-life length : Drawing length Scale factor = 10,000 mm : 4 mm

We can simplify this ratio by dividing both sides by 4:

10,000 ÷ 4 = 2500 4 ÷ 4 = 1

Thus, the simplified scale factor is:

2500 : 1