So it states that the area of the rectangle is 56 cm, so all of it. Given: 56 cm of rectangle Unknown: find x Length: 2 + x or x + 2 Width: 2x-5 Area = l * w (x+2)(2x-5) set x equal to 0 x+2=0 --> x=-2 2x-5=0 --> 2x=5 --> x = 5/2 so the answer we got was x=-2,5/2 we know that x cannot be negative because you can't measure with negative numbers, therefore, 5/2 is your answer