14.6k views
2 votes
A board is 20 inches long. It must be cut into four pieces of equal length, and each of the three cuts will cause a waste of 1/2 inches. How long will each piece be after the Cuts are made

User Mouffette
by
3.3k points

1 Answer

6 votes

Let the length of each cut be x.

Therefore, the following equation holds true:


4x+3((1)/(2))=20

Therefore,


\begin{gathered} 4x=20-(3)/(2)=18.5 \\ x=4.625\text{ inches} \end{gathered}

Therefore, the required length is 4.625

User Humpton
by
3.9k points