We begin by determining the number of inner toothpicks used to
make a 20 by 24 grid of squares.
A grid containing 20 rows has 19 horizontal lines of inner toothpicks,
each of which contains 24
toothpicks (since there are 24
columns).
Thus, the number of inner toothpicks positioned horizontally is 19×24=456.
A grid containing 24 columns has
23 vertical lines of inner
toothpicks, each of which contains 20 toothpicks (since there are 20 rows).
Thus, the number of inner toothpicks positioned vertically is 23×20=460.
In total, there are 456+460=916
inner toothpicks.
Next, we determine the total number of toothpicks used to make a
20 by 24 grid of squares.
There are 21 horizontal lines of
toothpicks, each of which contains 24 toothpicks.
There are 25 vertical lines of
toothpicks, each of which contains 20 toothpicks.
Thus, there are a total of 21×24+25×20=1004 toothpicks
used to make a 20 by 24 grid.
(Alternately, we could have determined that there are 88 outer toothpicks, and so there are
916+88=1004 toothpicks in
total.)
The percentage of inner toothpicks used is 1004916×100%, which is
91% when rounded to the nearest
percent.