Chapter 6

Similarity of Figures

6.1 – Similar Polygons

6.2 – Determining if two Polygons are Similar
6.3 – Drawing Similar Polygons
6.4 – Similar Triangles

21 

Name: ____________________________________
 
 

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 6.1 – Similar Polygons

A. What makes something similar to something else?

Two figures are similar if they have the _________________________, (angles and
proportion of sides) but are __________________________. What are some examples
of things that are similar?

Examples: photographs can be enlarged or reduced; scale models of buildings

Rules: for two figures to be similar they have to have the __________________ and
the ___________________ sides must be the same proportion.

Recall: Proportions from chapter 1:

_______________ is when you state that two fractions are equal.

14 
 
21 
Solve for :

4 1
20 5 2 8

For two figures to be similar:

 _____________________________ must be the same size; and

 _____________________________ must be in the same proportion

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In quadrilateral ABCD and quadrilateral WXYZ, the following equivalencies are true:

A = W B = X C = Y D = Z

AB BC YZ DA
  
WX XY DC ZW
These two quadrilaterals are similar. This can be written as: ABCD ~ WXYZ.

Worksheet: Similar Figures

Similar Figures Worksheet

1) Trapezoid DEFG is similar to trapezoid JKLM, as shown below. State the

corresponding sides and angles.

2) Identify the pairs of similar polygons below by letter names. Use the grid to
determine lengths. Explain your reasoning.

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B. Determining Sides in Similar Figures
When working with the length of sides in similar figures, the figures being either a
____________________ or an ______________________ of each other, the ratio of
the corresponding sides is always the ____________. What this means is that by using
a proportion, you can determine the lengths of all the unknown sides in both figures.
You can determine the _____________________ of the figures.

Example 1:
The two figures below are similar. Find the lengths of the side of the smaller figure.

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Example 2:

Tara has drawn a scale diagram of her bedroom so that she can sketch different
arrangements of her furniture. On her diagram, the walls have the following lengths:

If the longest wall in her room is actually 12.75ʹ, how long are the other walls?

Worksheet: Determining Sides in Similar Figures

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 Determining Sides in Similar Figures Worksheet

1) The two figures shown below are similar. Find the lengths of the sides of the
smaller figure. (The diagrams are not drawn to scale.)

2) On a blueprint, a room measures 2.75 inches by 1.5 inches. If 1 inch represents 8

feet, what will be the dimensions of the room?

3) Jason wants to build a model of his house. He will build the model using a scale
where 5 cm represents 2 m. If one room is 6.5 m long, 4.8 m wide, and 2.8 m tall,
what will its dimensions be in the model?

4) If a house is 40 feet long, 35 feet wide, and the top of the roof is 27 feet above
ground level, what will the corresponding dimensions be of a model built so that 1
foot is represented by ½ inch?

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 5) Michaela has a microscope that enlarges images between 40 and 1600 times.
How large will an object that is 1.2 mm by 0.5 mm appear to be at each of these
extremes?

6) The scale of a model airplane to the actual airplane is 2:45. If the model is 38
centimetres long, how long is the actual airplane?

7) Theresa folds origami paper to make stacked boxes. The outer box is 12 cm by 8
cm by 4 cm. Theresa would like to make three smaller, similar boxes, each scaled
down by ¼ of the previous box. What are the dimensions of the three smaller
boxes?

Answers:
1) LP = 7 cm; OP = 6 cm; ON = 4 cm; MN = 6 cm 2) 22 ft by 12 ft 3) 16.25 cm, 12 cm, 7 cm 4) 13.5”,
17.5”, 20” 5) 48 by 20; 1920 by 800 6) 855 cm 7) box1: 3, 6, 9; box 2 = 2.25, 4.5, 6.75; b0x 3 =
1.69, 3.38, 5.06

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C. Similar Triangles
Since corresponding angles in similar figures must be equal, the only difficulty with
determining the angle measures is making sure that the figures are arranged so they
look the ________________. Sometimes this will already be done for you. But other
times, you must carefully look at this arrangement.

Example 3:
If ∆RST is similar to ΔLMN and angle measures of ΔLMN are as follows, what are the
angles measures of ∆RST?

Example 4:
Two triangles are similar. One has sides of 8 m, 5 m, and 6 m. If the longest side of the
second triangle is 5 m, what are the lengths of the other two sides?

Worksheet: Similar Triangles

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 Similar Triangles Worksheet

1) If ΔABC is similar to ΔXYZ and the following angle measures are known, what
are the values of the remaining angles?

2) If two polygons ABCDEF and GHIJKL are similar, and the following angle
measures are given, state the corresponding angles and their measures.

3) If trapezoid PQRS is similar to trapezoid LMNO, what are the values of w, x, y,

and z?

4) A pentagon has interior angles of 108°, 204°, 63°, 120°, and 45°. Rudy wants to
draw a similar pentagon with sides twice as long as the original. What size will
the angles be?

Answers:
1) A=X=32°, C Z 48°, Y B 100° 2) J=D=73°; B H 21°; K E 40°
3 w 42°, x 45 cm, y 70°, z 17.5 cm 4 108°, 204°, 63°, 120°, and 45°

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 6.2 – Determining if two Polygons are Similar
In the first part of this unit, you learned about similar figures and how to find their
corresponding sides and angles. In this section you will determine if two figures similar,
and what changes you can make to a shape to keep it similar to the original.

Example 1:

In looking at the two figures below, are they similar? If so, explain how you know. If not,
explain what is missing or wrong. The angles marked with the same symbol are equal.

Example 2:

Determine if the two parallelograms below, ABCD and WXYZ, are similar.

Worksheet: Working with Similar Figures

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 Working with Similar Figures

1) Pierre drew two regular hexagons (6-sided figures with all sides equal in length).
Are the two hexagons similar? Why or why not?

2) Frank enlarges a photo to poster size. The original photo is 4 inches by 6 inches.
If Frank enlarges it to 1 m by 1.5 m, will it be similar in shape to the original?

3) Zoe says that the two rectangles below are not similar because does not
equal . Is Zoe right? Explain.

4) Janelle stated that increasing or decreasing the sides of a given figure by the same
factor will always produce a figure similar to the original. Is this true? Give one
example that illustrates your answer.

5) Aidan frames a 24-inch by 36-inch picture with a 4-inch frame. Is the framed
picture similar in shape to the unframed picture? Show your calculations.

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 6) One cylinder has a radius of 25 cm and a height of 35 cm. Another cylinder has a
radius of 30 cm and a height of 40 cm. Are the cylinders similar? Show your
calculations.

7) Show whether a rectangular prism that is 6 m by 10 m by 8 m is similar to one

that is 4 m by 7 m by 5 m.

8) Colin states that the following two figures are similar, but Tom disagrees, saying
that they don’t have enough information. Who is right? Show your calculations.

9) While he was at the pet food store, Jeremy saw three different sized dog mats.
They measured 36 inches by 28 inches, 27 inches by 21 inches, and 24 inches by
18 inches. Are all the mats similar? Show your calculations.

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 6.3 – Drawing Similar Polygons
A. Working with Scale Diagrams

What kind of jobs would require you to be able to draw similar shapes?

Drafters, builders, plumbers, furniture builders, fashion designers just to name few.
Also, if you just want to change the furniture in your room without actually moving it, you
would need to draw similar diagrams.

Activity: Draw a shape on a piece of graph paper. Draw any shape you want on half of
the paper. On the other side you must enlarge or minimize it by 1.5 times.

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Example 1:
Draw a figure similar to the one given with sides that are 2 times smaller than the length
of the original.

Worksheet: Drawing Similar Polygons

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 Drawing Similar Polygons Worksheet

1) Draw and label the lengths of the sides of a rectangle that has a length of 8 cm
and is similar to a rectangle that has a width of 10 cm and a length of 20 cm.

2) Barnie’s house is 55 ft wide and 40 ft deep. A drawing of his property shows the
house is 10 in wide and 7.3 in deep. What scale was used on the drawing
(i.e 1 in =______ ft)

3) Draw a square with sides of 2 cm, and a second square with sides that are 3 cm.

a) Is the second square similar to the first? Explain your reasoning.

b) If you draw a rectangle whose sides are 5 cm and 8 cm, and a second rectangle
with sides that are 3 cm longer, will the two be similar? Explain your
reasoning.

4) Draw a rectangular prism similar to the one shown below with sides that are ½
the length of the original, include dimensions.

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B. Scale Factor in Similar Figures

When figures are enlarged or reduced, this is often done by a ___________________.

A scale factor is the ratio of a side in one figure compared to the corresponding side in
the other figure. Earlier in this unit, we used the ratio of two corresponding sides in a
proportion to calculate other sides. The difference with using a scale factor is the ratio
when using scale factor is that it is always compared to 1. So a proportion is not
necessary when the scale factor is 1: some number, e.g. 1:500.

Usually the scale factor is a single number: example, the scale factor is 1.5 or the scale
factor is one quarter. Whether dealing with an enlargement or a reduction, the process
of solving the problem is the same.

Example 2:
A tissue has the dimensions of 9 cm by 10 cm. The company that makes the tissues
wants to increase the dimensions of the tissues by 1.7. What are the new dimensions of
the tissues?

Example 3:
The scale on a neighbourhood map shows that 1 cm on the map represents an actual
distance of 2.5 km.

a) On the map, Waltham Street has a length of 14 cm. What would the actual length of
street be?

b) Centre Street has an actual length of 25 km. What would the length of the street be
on the map?

Example 4:
Xavier is building a staircase using scale drawings. On the drawing, the height of one
stair is 0.5 cm and the depth is 0.9 cm. Xavier will use a scale factor of 40 to build the
stairs. Calculate the height and depth of the stairs he will build.

Worksheet: Scale Factor in Similar Figures

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 Scale Factor in Similar Figures Worksheet

1) The scale on a map is 1 cm: 500 m.

a) What distance is represented by a 12.5 cm segment on the map?

b) How long would a segment on the map be if it represented 1.5 km?

2) Scott was asked to scale a drawing by 75%. If one side in the drawing was 15 cm,
what was the size of the new drawing?

3) A sporting goods store has a miniature tent on display. The regular 6 person tent
is 12 feet long and 10 feet wide. The 6 person tent has been reduced by a factor
of 8 to make the miniature tent. What are the dimensions of the miniature tent?

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 4) Sam has built two end tables. The second table is a slightly larger version of the
first. Given the dimensions below, calculate what scale factor Sam used to make
the larger table.

5) A craft store uses small gift boxes to wrap purchases. They have one box that is
20 cm by 12 cm by 5 cm. Another box is larger by a scale factor of 1.3. What are
the dimensions of the larger box?

6) Hannah made a kite with the dimensions shown below. She

decided it would work better if it were bigger. If her new kite
tail has a length of 49 cm, what scale factor did she use, and
what are the kite’s other dimensions?

7) David’s house is 55 feet wide. A drawing of his property shows the house
10 inches wide. What is the scale factor used in the drawing?

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 8) A poster shows a photograph of a cruise ship. The actual ship is 310 metres long.
In the photograph, the cruise ship is 1.2 m long.

a) What is the scale factor (to 4 decimal places)?

b) A person 1.8 m tall was standing on the deck of the cruise ship when the photo
was taken. How tall is the person on the photo (to the nearest tenth of a
centimetre)?

9) The scale of a model to its original is 3:5. If the original is 75 cm, what is the size
of the model?

10) Ioana made this Ukrainian embroidery pattern for a dance costume. She wants
to reduce the pattern with a scale factor of 9:10. What will the new length and
width be?

Answers:
1) a) 6000 m b) 3 cm 2) 11.25 cm 3) 1.5 ft by 1.25 ft 4) 1.25
5) 26 cm by 15.6 cm by 6.5 cm 6) 14 cm; 35 cm; 70 cm 7) 66 8) a) 0.0039 b) 0.07 cm
9) 45 cm 10) 5.4 cm by 2.7 cm

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 6.4 – Similar Triangles
Similar triangles are very useful in making calculations and determining measurements.
There are certain things to know about triangles before proceeding. Triangles always
have 3 ________ and three ________. The sum of the angles of a triangle is always
_______.

If two corresponding angles are equal, the third angles will also be equal because the
sum must be 180°.

There are special triangles:

A. __________________: has two sides ___________ in length

and the two angles opposite these sides are ____________.

B. __________________: has all three sides _______________ in

length and all three angles equal in measure to 60°.

Two triangles are similar if any two of the three corresponding

______________ are ______________OR one pair of corresponding
angles is congruent and the corresponding sides beside the angles
are proportional.

*Congruent means the same in size and shape.

Example 1:

Given the two triangles below, find the length of n.

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Example 2:

Kevin notices that a 2 m pole casts a shadow of 5 m, and a second pole casts a shadow
of 9.4 m. How tall is the second pole?

Example 3:

Given that ∆FGH ~ ∆XYZ, state which angles are equal and which sides are
proportional.

Worksheet: Similar Triangles

Similar Triangles Worksheet

1) In each of the diagrams below, ΔABC is similar to ΔXYZ. Find the length of the
indicated side (to one decimal place).

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2) In the following diagram, AB is parallel to ED, AB = 8 m, AC = 12 m, and CE = 7 m.
What is the length of ED, to one decimal place?

3) Sean has cut two triangular shapes from a block of

wood, as shown below. Are the two faces of the
blocks similar? Are the two blocks similar?

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4) Given that ΔABC in similar to ΔRST, AB is 6 cm long, BC is 5 cm long, and RS is 8
cm long, find the length of a second side in ΔRST. Can you find the length of the
third side? Explain your answer. Draw a diagram.

5) Julian is visiting the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg, where he sees the
statue of Louis Riel. Use the information in the diagram to find the height of the
statue (not including the base). Round your
answer to a whole number.

Answers:
1) a) 3.9 cm b) 29.1 ft c) 4.8 m 2) 4.7 m 4) 6.67 cm 5) 17 ft

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