Question

There is a rectangular lot with dimensions 250 ft times 150 ft on George's paper route. Instead of walking around the empty lot, George cuts around the middle from corner to corner. How many feet does George save by using the shortcut? 100, 250, 300, 350, none of the above

Answer 1

You might want to sketch this rectangular lot. Indicate that the length is 250 feet and the width is 150 feet. Now draw a diagonal from any one corner to the opposite corner.

do you see that this constructs two right triangles?
Use the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the length of the diagonal. That'll lead to the correct answer (but is not actually THE answer).

Answer 2

If this guy did NOT take the shortcut, how far would he go?
If he takes the shortcut, how far?
What is the difference between these two distances?

Answer 3

I came up with 200 as my answer.

Answer 4

if we divide your numbers by 50 (this is a trick to simplify it)
we get 5 and 3