Question

Brianna cuts a piece of yarn into 4 equal-length pieces.Then she cuts 2 inches off one of the pieces, leaving5 inches of yarn on the piece. What was the length ofthe original piece of yarn?

Answer 1

Given that:

- She cuts the piece of yarn into 4 pieces of equal length.

- Then she cuts 2 inches off of one of the 4 pieces of equal length.

- After that cuts, she leaves 5 inches of yarn on the piece.

Let be "l" the length (in inches) of the original piece.

Now you can write the following equation to represent the next cut, in which she cuts 2 inches off of one of those pieces:

`x-2=5`

Therefore, solving for "x", you get the length of each of the 4 pieces:

`\begin{gathered} x=5+2 \\ x=7 \end{gathered}`

Multiply the result by 4, in order to find the total length of the original piece:

`l=4\cdot7`

Then, you get:

`l=28`

Hence, the answer is:

`28\text{ }inches`