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a carpenter has two pieces of lumber. He wants to make a rectangular raised flower bed with a ratio of the length to width to be 7:3. what will the width of the flower bed be if each piece of lumber is 20 feet in length?

1 Answer

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This is a proportion problem. When we equal two ratios, we end up with a proportion. In this case, we have:


(L)/(W)=(7)/(3)

Where L is for length and W for width.

We also have that the length is 20, then, we have:


(L)/(W)=(7)/(3)\rightarrow(W)/(L)=(3)/(7)\rightarrow W=(3\cdot L)/(7)\rightarrow W=(3\cdot20)/(7)
W=(60)/(7),W=8.57142\ldots

Then, the width is W = 60/7 (or about W = 8.5714 feet).

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