Area of Pool

[reckoner]

a) A rectangular pool is 55 meters by 30 meters and has a concrete path all around it. Find the area of the concrete path if it is 2.6 meters wide at the sides and 4.4 meters wide at the ends. Round your answer to the nearest whole meter squared.

b) For this part use the rounded answer from Part A in your calculation. The concrete path is to be tiled with square tiles 20cm by 20cm each. Approximately how many tiles will be needed for the job? Round your answer to the nearest whole tile.

I'm just hung up on what it means when it says for question a) 4.4 meters wide at the ends. If someone would kindly take the time to lay out any formulas I will need that would be great. I don't know if I need to find out the perimeter of the pool first or what. Thank you.

 

[DrMike]

a) A rectangular pool is 55 meters by 30 meters and has a concrete path all around it. Find the area of the concrete path if it is 2.6 meters wide at the sides and 4.4 meters wide at the ends. Round your answer to the nearest whole meter squared.

b) For this part use the rounded answer from Part A in your calculation. The concrete path is to be tiled with square tiles 20cm by 20cm each. Approximately how many tiles will be needed for the job? Round your answer to the nearest whole tile.

I'm just hung up on what it means when it says for question a) 4.4 meters wide at the ends. If someone would kindly take the time to lay out any formulas I will need that would be great. I don't know if I need to find out the perimeter of the pool first or what. Thank you.

You don't need any perimeters, just areas.

It means that the short sides of the pool (the 30m sides) have a 4.4 m path, and the long sides have a 2.6 m path.

Draw a picture of the whole path and pool - you'll see that the path is like a big rectangle, with a pool-sized rectangle chopped out of the middle. The easiest way to find teh area of the path is to find the area of these two rectanges, and subtract.

Once you have the area of the path, do you know how to do part (b) ?

 

[reckoner]

wow thank you. I had no idea what 4.4 meters wide at the end was supposed to mean.

as far as part b goes no, I do not have an idea what to do next. If you wouldn't mind helping further I would certainly appreciate it. Thanks.