316,127 views
34 votes
34 votes
Cynthia Besch wants to buy a rug for a room that is 25 ft wide and 31 ft long. She wants to leave a uniform strip

of floor around the rug. She can afford to buy 567 square feet of carpeting. What dimensions should the rug
have?

User Jayprakash Chaurasia
by
2.6k points

1 Answer

13 votes
13 votes

Answer:

21 ft by 27 ft

Explanation:

You want the dimensions of a rug with an area of 567 square feet such that it fits in a 25 ft by 31 ft room with a uniform space all around.

Setup

We note the room is 31-25=6 ft longer than it is wide. Since the rug has a uniform border around it, the rug dimensions will be 6 ft longer than wide. We want the rug area to be 567 square feet, so for width w we have ...

w(w+6) = 567

Solution

w² +6w +9 = 576 . . . . . . add 9 to complete the square

(w +3)² = 24² . . . . . . . . express as squares

w +3 = 24 . . . . . . . . . positive square root

w = 21 . . . . . . . . . . subtract 3 to find the width

w+6 = 27 . . . . . . add 6 to find the length

The rug should have dimensions 21 ft wide by 27 ft long.

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Additional comment

The uniform strip of floor around the rug will be 2 feet wide.

User Marurban
by
3.3k points
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