document.write( "Question 1162715: Joseph has 14 feet of rope. He wants to cut it into two pieces so that the
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Algebra.Com's Answer #786536 by Edwin McCravy(20060) $\"\"$ $\"About$

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Joseph has 14 feet of rope. He wants to cut it into two pieces so that the
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the longer piece is one foot less than four times the length of the shorter piece

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document.write( "The longer piece is mentioned first and the shorter piece is mentioned second.\r\n" );
document.write( "There are occasional exceptions, but the best rule to follow is: \r\n" );
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document.write( "\"Let x equal what is mentioned second.\"\r\n" );
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document.write( "So we let x = the length of the shorter piece.\r\n" );
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the longer piece is one foot less than four times the length of the shorter piece

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document.write( "Length of longer piece = 4x - 1\r\n" );
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document.write( "matrix(5,1,Length, of, the, shorter, piece)),\r\n" );
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document.write( "The equation comes from\r\n" );
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document.write( "x + (4x - 1) = 14\r\n" );
document.write( "  x + 4x - 1 = 14\r\n" );
document.write( "      5x - 1 = 14\r\n" );
document.write( "         + 1  + 1\r\n" );
document.write( "     ------------\r\n" );
document.write( "      5x     = 15\r\n" );
document.write( "        5x/5 = 15/5\r\n" );
document.write( "           x = 3 feet   <--length of shorter piece\r\n" );
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document.write( "Length of longer piece = 4x - 1 = 4(3) - 1 = 12 - 1 = 11 feet    \r\n" );
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document.write( "Edwin

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