Given:
Width of a garden = 10 feet
Length of the garden = 14 feet
Area of the garden and the walkway together = 396 square feet.
To find:
The width of the walkway.
Solution:
A cement walkway is added around the outside of the garden.
Let x be the width of the walkway.
The width of the garden with walkway = 10+2x
The length of the garden with walkway = 14+2x
Area of a rectangle is
Area of garden and the walkway together is
Divide both sides by 4.
Splitting the middle term, we get
Using zero product property, we get
Width of walkway cannot be negative. So, x=4.
Therefore, the width of the walkways is 4 feet.