Question

Eleanor and Max used two Rectangular wooden boards to make a set for the school play one board was 6 feet long,And other was 5 1/2 feet long the two boards had equal widths. The total area of the set was 60 3/8 square feet. what is the width

Answer 1

The total area is the product of length and width

... total area = (length1 × width) + (length2 × width)

... = (length1 + length2) × width

... 60 3/8 = (6 + 5 1/2) × width

... (60 3/8)/(11 1/2) = width = 5 1/4 . . . . feet

The width of the boards use for the set was 5 1/4 feet.

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A suitable calculator can give you this answer directly. Others may ask you to convert to or from decimal feet.

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The method conventionally taught to do division with mixed numbers is to convert them to improper fractions:

... 60 3/8 = (60·8 +3)/8 = 483/8

... 11 1/2 = (11·2 + 1)/2 = 23/2

Then, invert the denominator and multiply:

... (483/8)/(23/2) = (483/8) × (2/23) = 483/(4·23)

... = 483/92 = 5 23/92 = 5 1/4 . . . . . . . . remembering that 92 = 4·23

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It isn't clear whether this is a problem about areas, or a problem about mixed-number arithmetic. It is a good idea to get comfortable with arithmetic using numbers in any form: integers, decimals, mixed numbers, fractions, percents.