Question

The congruent sides of an isosceles triangle are each 1 unit longer than the length of the shortest side of the triangle. The perimeter of the triangle is the same as the perimeter of a square whose side length is 2 units shorter than the length of the shortest side of the triangle. What is the length of the shortest side of the triangle?

cm

Answer 1

the answer above this one is perfectly fine and they did a great job on explaining it but i just want the points so the answer is 10 unites

Answer 2

let length of shortest side be x

then length of each congruent sides = x + 1
perimeter of the triangle = x + x+1 +x + 1 = 3x + 2
perimeter of the square = 4(x-2) = 4x - 8
So we have

4x - 8 = 3x + 2
x = 10

the shortest side is 10 units long.