Question

Claire is cutting a square out of a bigger square for an art project. She cuts out a square with an area of 9 cm2. The leftover area is 16 cm2. What is the length of one of the sides of the bigger square? The area of a square is A = l2 where l is the length of one of its sides. The square has side lengths of centimeters.

Answer 1

5 cm

Explanation:

If Claire cut out a square out of a larger square, then the area of the square she cut out added to the leftover area would equal the original area of the bigger square. So we add the cut out square (9 cm²) to the leftover area (16 cm²) to get 25 cm². So 25 cm² = L². If we take the square root of both sides, we get L = 5 cm.