SOLUTION: A gymnasium floor is 50 ft. by 84 ft. A rectangular basketball court will be painted in the center of the floor leaving an out-of-bounds region of uniform width around the edge

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Question 1192772: A gymnasium floor is 50 ft. by 84 ft. A rectangular basketball court will be painted in
the center of the floor leaving an out-of-bounds region of uniform width around the
edge of the court. The court will cover 58% of the floor. How wide will the out-of-
bounds region be?
Answer by greenestamps(13198) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!


With the percentage of 58%, it is not likely that the width will be a "nice" number. So we very probably won't get an exact answer without a calculator.

So the only thing to learn from this problem is how to set the problem up for solving.

Let the uniform width of the out-of-bounds area be x; then the dimensions of the court are 84-2x by 50-2x.

The area of the court is to be 58% = 0.58 of the area of the floor:

%2884-2x%29%2850-2x%29=0.58%2884%2A50%29

Graph the two expressions on a graphing calculator to find that the width of the out-of-bounds area is approximately 7.4 feet.