E. Solving Problems Involving Metric Measurements

Sometimes you will encounter problems that use more than one unit for a type of measurement. It is usually helpful to convert to the same unit when this happens.

 

Example 1

Steve and Jacob are trying to determine the area of a rectangular room. Steve measures the length of one wall to be 521 cm and Jacob measures the adjacent wall to be 6.4 m. What is the area of the room? Express your answer to the nearest tenth of a square metre.

To determine the area, both measurements must be in the same unit. Either converting Steve's measure to metres, or converting Jacob's measure to centimetres is acceptable. In this example, the centimetres will be converted to metres.

Use one of the earlier strategies to convert centimetres to metres.

Now solve the problem.

The area of the room is approximately 33.3 m2.