SOLUTION: I am confused, please help. Problem A person cuts a rope into two pieces that are equal in length. The first piece is 4 times the length of the person’s forearm minus 1 inch.

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Question 94603: I am confused, please help.
Problem
A person cuts a rope into two pieces that are equal in length. The first piece is 4 times the length of the person’s forearm minus 1 inch. The second piece is 3 times the length of the person’s forearm plus 15 inches.
Questions
A. Construct the linear equation that represents the situation in the given using x as the variable for the person’s forearm.

B. Solve the linear equation you constructed both algebraically and graphically to find the length of the person’s forearm. Show your work.

Answer by Earlsdon(5032) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Let the length of the first piece of rope be and the length of the second piece be . From the problem description, you can write:
and...

But you are told that the lengths of the two pieces are equal, so...
then...
Simplify and solve for x. Subtract 3x from both sides.
Add 1 to both sides.
This is the length of the person's forearm.
Graphically, we can show this result by graphing the two linear equations and noting the x-coordinate of the point of intersection. This will give us the solution to the problem.