A square plot of land has a building 80 ft long and 20 ft wide at one corner.

Question

 The rest of the land outside the building forms a parking lot. If the parking lot has area 15,300 ft2, what are the dimensions of the entire plot of land?

Answer 1

Hi Iryna:

If you draw a diagram, you will see this is a very easy problem.

Let the side of the square be x feet.

Then, the total area of the square minus the area occupied by the building is 15,300 ft².

That is: x² - (80 . 20) = 15300

=> x² - 1,600 = 15,300

x² = 15,300 + 1,600

x² = 16,900

x - √16.900 = 130 ft

That's all!