Question

Jane has been practicing sewing, and she wants to make a rectangular blanket to give as a gift to her best friend. So that the blanket is not too small, Jane decides the blanket will have an area of approximately 40 square feet, or 5,760 square inches. She also wants the blanket to be 18 inches longer than it is wide to have room to embroider her friend's name along one edge.

To the nearest tenth of an inch, what is the width of the blanket?

Answer 1

To find the width of the blanket, set up an equation using the given information and solve for x.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find the width of the blanket, we can set up an equation using the given information.

Let's assume the width of the blanket is 'x' inches. Since the length is 18 inches longer than the width, the length would be 'x + 18' inches.

The area of a rectangle is found by multiplying its length by its width, so we can set up the equation: x(x + 18) = 5760.

Simplifying this quadratic equation gives us x^2 + 18x - 5760 = 0.

We can then solve this equation using factoring or the quadratic formula to find the value of x, which will give us the approximate width of the blanket to the nearest tenth of an inch.