SOLUTION: please help me on a story problem: a rectangular swimming pool is surrounded by a cement walk of uniform width.let x represent this width. the pool measures 6m by 10m and the tota

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: please help me on a story problem:
a rectangular swimming pool is surrounded by a cement walk of uniform width.let x represent this width. the pool measures 6m by 10m and the total are of the pool and walk is 96m^2. What is the width of the walk?
 This question is from textbook

Answer by jim_thompson5910(35256)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
First let's draw a picture. We can see that the length of the large rectangle is and the width of the large rectangle is since we are adding to both the length and the width.


From the drawing, we can see that the area of the large rectangle is


Also, from the drawing, the area of smaller rectangle is:





Now since the area of the pool and the walkway is , this means for the large rectangle.

Plug in

Foil


Subtract 96 from both sides.



Combine like terms



Factor the right side


Now set each factor equal to zero:
or

or Now solve for x in each case


So our possible answers are
or


However, since a negative length/width doesn't make sense, our only solution is


So the walkway is 1 meter
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