Question

You and a friend want to know how much rope you need to climb a large rock. To estimate the height of the rock, your friend uses a square to line up the top and the bottom of the rock, as seen in the diagram. You measure the vertical distance from the ground to your friend's eye to be 5.5 feet and the distance from your friend's eye to the rock to be 18 feet. Calculate the height of the rock. The diagram is not drawn to scale. Round the answer to the nearest whole number.

Answer 1

You can set up a proportion to find the other part of the vertical height, then just add that to the 5.5 you're given. There may be a more efficient way to do it in one step, but that's one way.



\[\frac{ 5.5 }{ 18 }=\frac{ 18 }{ x }\]