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Find the area of a square in square inches whose side is 1.3 ft?

I keep getting this one wrong I would think that 1.3 feet is 16 inches and then multiply that by that by sixteen but that is not the correct answer.

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    $1.3$ feet is $1.3\cdot 12=15.6$ inches.2012-05-05

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One thing that can help when doing unit conversions is properly setting up your fractions. In this case, you need $ \frac{1.3\text{ ft}}{1}\times \frac{12\text{ in}}{1\text{ ft}} = 15.6\text{ in} $ Now it's clear from the fractions that you have to multiply 1.3 by 12 to convert feet to inches. The area of a square is $s^2$ where $s$ is the length of a side, so the area is $(15.6)^2=243.36$ square inches (don't forget the units).