Question

a carpenter has a wooden dowel that is 96 cm long. she wants to cut it into two pieces so that one piece is 5 times as long as the other. what is the length of the longer piece? ​

Answer 1

30 cm

Explanation:

In this problem (word problem), we are examined on how to express equations from words.

let us initialize some variables

let the length of the first piece (the short piece) be x

and that of the second(the longer piece) be 5x

given that the total length is 96 cm

Also from the problem statement, the total length can be expressed as

5x+x= 96

6x= 96

divide both sides by 6 to solve for x

x= 96/6

x= 16

now the longer side = 5x

the longer side= 5*6

the longer side = 30 cm