Question

Ron Finley is a gardener who decided a few years ago to plant several gardens in South Central Los Angeles. He wants his next garden to be a rectangle where the length is three times the width. Additionally, it must have a perimeter of 24 yards because of space constraints. What are the length and the width of the garden?

Answer 1

Well, we can be sure that whatever the width is, we can call it ' W '. Then, from information in the question, the length of the garden is ' 3W '.

Now, the perimeter of a rectangle is (length + width + length + width). Using the fancy algebra labels I just gave them, that's (3W + W + 3W + W). And now I can go through that, add up all the Ws, and get a total of 8W for the perimeter.

But he question tells us that the perimeter is 24 yards, so 8W = 24 yds.

Divide each side of that equation by 8, and we discover that W = 3 yds. And if THAT's true, then 3W = 9 yds. Bada bing ! We have the dimensions of the garden.

It's 3 yards wide and 9 yards long.