What is the greatest number of square meters Mr. Quinn can enclose with the amount of chicken wire he has?

Question

Mr. Quinn had 24 meters of chicken wire with which to build a turkey pen against the side of his barn. The graph shows the area of the pen as a function of its length, x.

Answer 1

Hi Alicia. When you are given a total amount (24 meters), and you need to maximize the square meters possible, think about making the length and width equal, or close to it.

In this question, you can make them both 6, because it gives you 24 for 4 sides. It is a square, and since the area of a square is length x width, you get 6 x 6 = 36 for the greatest number of square meters.

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