Question

At the time that a 55 foot tall tree casts a shadow that is 32 feet long, a nearby woman is 5.5 feet tall. Which measure is the closest to the length of the shadow she will cast?

Answer 1

3.2ft long shadow

Explanation:

In this problem we are given a ratio between the tree/shadow and woman/shadow therefore we are given 3 values and 1 unknown then we can use the Rule of Three to calculate the length of the shadow which we will refer to as x. The Rule of Three simply multiplies the diagonal values and divides by the third value in order to get the missing unknown like so...

55ft tall <======> 32ft long shadow

5.5ft tall <======> x ft long shadow

(5.5 * 32) / 55 = 3.2ft long shadow

Finally, we can see that the woman's shadow would be a 3.2ft long shadow