Question

One of the rooms on a cleaning crew's schedule has a width four feet less than the length and has an area of 252 square feet. What are the dimensions of the room?

Write a quadratic equation in standard form to model the situation. Let h represent the length.
Solve the equation. Find the dimensions of the room.

Answer 1

A= wl

w=l-4

wh=252
(h- 4)h = 252
h^2 - 4h = 252

h^2 - 4h - 252 = 0

(h - 18)(h + 14) = 0

h - 18 = 0. Or. h + 14 = 0
h = 18. Or. h = -14

The length will be 18 as there can not be a negative length.

18w = 252
w = 14

Width is 14 feet and length is 18 feet