Question

A carpenter has a wooden dowel that is 72 centimeters long. She wants to cut it into 2 pieces so that one piece is 5 times as long as the other. What are the lengths of the 2 pieces?

Answer 1

Let's say that the shorter piece is x and the longer piece is 5x (because it's 5 times as long). x+5x=72 and 6x=72. Dividing both sides by 6, we get that x=12, and 72-12=the length of the other piece (since there are only 2 pieces)=60