Question

A 42-inch board is to be cut into three pieces so that the second piece is twice as long as the first piece and the third piece is 3 times as long as the first piece . If x

represents the length of the of the first piece what is the length of the second piece?

Answer 1

If the length of the first piece is x then the others are of lengths 2x and 3x.

Furthermore,

`42=x+2x+3x=6x`

Divide both ends by
`6` to find

`x=7`

So the first piece is of length 7 inches and the other two are 14 inches and 21 inches.