A painter made the given table to show the amount of paint it takes to cover a certain amount of square feet. The amount of paint varies directly with the area of each wall. Amount of Paint and Size of Wall Area of wall open paren ft squared close paren , x 64 144 400 Amount of paint (pints), y 4 9 25 How much paint should the painter expect to use to paint a wall with an area of 256 square feet?
Because the amount of paint varies directly with wall area, the ratio of paint to area is constant. From the table, 4 ÷ 64 = 1/16 pint per square foot. For a 256-square-foot wall, the painter needs 256 × 1/16 = 16 pints, so the answer is 16 pints.
AI-written and checked against the verified answer.