SOLUTION: Cynthia Besch wants to buy a rug for a room that is 23 ft wide and 24 ft long. She wants to leave a uniform strip of floor around the rug. She can afford to buy 240 square feet of
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-> SOLUTION: Cynthia Besch wants to buy a rug for a room that is 23 ft wide and 24 ft long. She wants to leave a uniform strip of floor around the rug. She can afford to buy 240 square feet of
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Question 1084975: Cynthia Besch wants to buy a rug for a room that is 23 ft wide and 24 ft long. She wants to leave a uniform strip of floor around the rug. She can afford to buy 240 square feet of carpeting. What dimensions should the rug have? Found 2 solutions by josgarithmetic, ikleyn:Answer by josgarithmetic(39616) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! x, the uniform strip size along each side.
Rug dimensions, 23-2x and 24-2x.
Rug AREA given, 240 square feet.
Simplify and solve this equation for x, and then evaluate the rug's dimensions.
Your working equation to find the unknown width x of the uniform strip is
(23-2x)*(24-2x) = 240.
So, the question is: find two factors of the number 240 that differ in one unit.
You can find the solution MENTALLY: these factors are 15 and 16.
So, 23-2x = 15, which implies 2x = 23 - 15 = 8 and x = 4 feet.
Thus the width of the uniform strip is 4 feet.
It imlies that the dimensions of the rug are 24 - 2*4 = 16 feet (length) and 23 - 2*4 = 15 feet (width).
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