Question

Roy is going to increase the size of his patio to make room for a new BBQ grill. The ratio of the area of the old patio to the area of the new patio is 2 1 : 63. Convert this ratio to a unit rate and explain what this unit rate means in the context of this problem.

Answer 1

The ratio of 21:63 can be written as a simple ratio of 1:3. It is important you have labels on your numbers.

Here is the ratio rewritten with labels:

21 - old patio: 63 - new patio

1 - old patio: 3 - new patio

This can be switched around to say 3:1 as the ratio of the area of the new to the area of the old.

Each of the number would be square units because they are measuring area.