Question

A 16-foot tall flagpole casts a shadow that is 8 feet long. How tall is the nearby football goal post if it hasa shadow of 4 feet?

Answer 1

we can draw a picture of this:

where both right triangles are congruent. This means that

$\frac{x}{16}=\frac{4}{8}$

hence,

$\begin{gathered} x=(16)(\frac{4}{8}) \\ x=\frac{16}{2} \\ x=8 \end{gathered}$

Therefore, the football goalis 8 feet tall