a A carpet sells for 2899 a square yard What is the price of

a) A carpet sells for $28.99 a square yard. What is the price of the carpet per square meter?

b) how much will it cost to carpet an area of 1221 square feet?

Solution

A)

* Identify what you start with. In this case $28.99 per square yard, or $28.99/yd^2.

* Introduce a new fraction in order to attempt to change square yards into square feet (In this case: 1.19599 square yard is equal to 1 square meter)

Take the original fraction ($28.99/yd^2) and multiply by (1.19599 yd^2 / m^2). Notice that you want to arrange the 2nd fraction with yd^2 on top and m^2 on bottom so that the yd^2 label cancels.

28.99(1.19599)= 34.67 per m²

B)

* Start with what you know: 1221 ft²

* Change square feet to square yards. We find out that 1 square yard = 9 square feet

* Setup dimensional analysis- (1221 ft²) * (1 yd² / 9 ft²) Notice that since ft² is in the numerator of the first fraction, we must set up the second fraction with the label ft² in the denominator

Setup another dimensional analysis (fraction). If we were to multiply the two fractions we would get (1221) * (1/9) = 135..66667 square yards. But remember, it costs $28.99 per square yard. We need to multiply our (135.66667) * ($28.99) to get, $3932.98