The Eddingtons have a 5 ft by 8 ft porch on the front of their house. They are building a similar porch on the back with doubled dimension. Find the area of the back porch.

So we can calculate the front porch area by multiplying the sides

(5 ft) (8 ft) = 40 ft^2

By doubling the dimensions it could mean one of two things

1. (40 ft^2) * 2 = 80 ft^2 [doubling area]

2. (5*2) (8*2) = 160 ft^2 [doubling dimensions of each side]