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jojo24794
Apr 24, 2008, 12:47 PM
Can you please help me with the following question:-

Andrew, who is about 120 cm tall, notices that when he stands at the bottom of his garden, which is 20 meters away from his house, his dad, who is about 180cm tall, looks as big as the house when he is about 2.5 meters away from Andrew. How high is the house?

I'll be able to work it out, its just that I don't seem to be able to figure out the positions of the dad and Andrew.

galactus
Apr 24, 2008, 03:38 PM
If we make a diagram and label it as such, perhaps we can make use of some similar triangles.

DC=180, AB=120, BE=20, BC=2.5, DG=60, FH=x-120

\frac{60}{2.5}=\frac{x-120}{20}

Solve for x.

jojo24794
Apr 25, 2008, 11:39 AM
Im sorry but I don't understand where you got the value of 60 from, please can you explain?

galactus
Apr 25, 2008, 12:01 PM
Look at the triangle. 180-120=60. The difference in Andrew and his dads heights

jojo24794
Apr 26, 2008, 12:15 PM
Is the answer 6m?

galactus
Apr 26, 2008, 12:51 PM
That's what I got. Sounds reasonable. That's almost 20 feet.

jojo24794
Apr 26, 2008, 02:53 PM
It is got the answers today thanks for your help