Question

your school is setting up a row of 5 tables for a craft fair. each table is 72 inches long. the space between each pair of neighboring tables must be 48 inches. write and evaluate an expression to find the length of the space needed for the tables from the beginning of the first table to the end of the last table.

Answer 1

The total space needed is 600 feet. Because 5 tables times 72 feet is 360 and 5 tables times 48 feet a part is 249. You add them and it comes out to be 600. It should be worked out like this 5(72+48)

Answer 2

Okay assuming I understand the question right, there are 5 tables running 72 inches long with 48 inches in between. If x is a table, and o is space, how can we arrange 5 x's with a space in between? xoxoxoxox. Note how we only use 4 o's for 5x's. We don't need space outside of the tables, just in between them.

With this, let's do some math. If we have 5 x's, that's 5 tables, which means that our length from the tables are going to be $5*72=360$ inches.

We have 4 spaces, at 48 inches each is going to take up $4*48=192$

Adding up both, $192+360=552 inches$.

552 inches of length is needed.