SOLUTION: A piece of wood that is 36 inches long is cut into two pieces so that twice the longer piece is two inches more than three times the shorter piece. How long is the shorter piece?
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Question 1019363: A piece of wood that is 36 inches long is cut into two pieces so that twice the longer piece is two inches more than three times the shorter piece. How long is the shorter piece?
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Let's call the shorter piece's length, x.
The longer piece must then be 36-x.
Then we write
2(36-x) = 2 + 3x
72 - 2x = 2 + 3x
Now add 2x and subtract 2 from both sides and get
72 = 2 + 5x
70 = 5x
Now divide by 5 and get
x = 14 inches
