The figure above shows a path around a triangular piece of land. Mary walked the distance of 8 miles from P to Q and then walked the distance of 6 miles from Q to R. If Ted walked directly from P to R, by what percent did the distance that Mary walked exceed the distance that Ted walked?
2 Explanations
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Eduardo Cuan
You can calculate the hypotenuse with the Pythagorean theorem, which is: a^2 + b^2 = c^2 (c will always be the hypotenuse)
I plugged the given values:
6^2 + 8^2 = c^2
36 + 64 = c^2
100 = c^2
10 = c
Ted walked 10 miles and Mary walked 14 miles, 4 more miles than Ted.
Mary exceeded the distance by: 4/10 = 40%
Great job! Yes, as you've shown, after determining that the hypotenuse of the right triangle is 10, we can calculate the % difference by subtracting the distance Mary walks (14) from the distance Ted walks (10), dividing this difference by how far Ted walks, and multiplying by 100%: (14-10)/10x100 = 40%. Thanks for contributing to the forum :)
2 Explanations