A triangle’s base was increased by 15%. If its area is increased by 38%, what percent was the height of the triangle increased by?

The easiest way to get this question is to plug in! Say the base and height of the original triangle are each 10. The formula for finding the area of a triangle is A=\frac{1}{2}bh, where b and h are the base and height, so the area of our original triangle is A=\frac{1}{2}(10)(10)=50.

Increasing the base by 15% brings it from 10 to 10\times 1.15=11.5. Increasing the area by 38% brings it from 50 to 50\times 1.38=69. Plug those back into the formula to solve for the new height:

    \begin{align*}69&=\frac{1}{2}11.5h\\138&=11.5h\\12&=h\end{align*}

If the original height was 10 and the new height is 12, then the height increased by 20%.

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