Question

It is recommended that you work this out on graph paper to help answer the questions. Maria plots the locations of 4 places on a coordinate grid as given below (It is recommended that you work this out on graph paper to help answer the questions.):

Her house is at (−4, 9).
Her school is at (−4, 3).
The community center is at (1, 3).
The grocery store is at (−4, −8).

Part A: Use absolute values to calculate the distance in units from Maria's house to her school. Show your work. (4 points)

Part B: Is the total distance from Maria's house to the school to the grocery store greater than the total distance from Maria's house to the school to the community center? Justify your answer. (6 points)

Answer 1

Part A: House is at (-4,9)
School - (-4,3)

Since both contain the same x-axis coordinate, taking the following y-axis points, 9 and 3 and subtracting them results in 6 units, the distance between the two locations. You can also graph the two points and simply count the units in between (should be in a straight line for this question)

Answer 2

Part B: Yes

Since we already know the distance from the house to the school, which is 6 units, we can take that value, add the distance from the school to the grocery store (3 + 8 = 11) and add that which is 11+6, therefore, the distance for the first scenario is 17 units.

House --> school --> center
6 + (1 + 4) = 11 units