Question

A carpenter has a wooden board that is 72 cm long. She wants to cut it into 2 pieces where one piece is 5 times bigger than the other. What are the lengths of the 2 pieces?

Answer 1

let the measure of one peice be x
then, the other peice must measure 5x

measure of 1st peice + measure of 2nd peice = total measure of the board

5x + x = 72
6x = 72
x = 12

So, the 1st peice measures x = 12cm
and the other measures 5x = 5 (12) = 60cm.