Completely stuck on this math problem!

Question

Edgar needed to cut a piece of wood into two smaller segments. The shorter piece was 1 yard longer than half the longer piece. If the length of the entire piece of wood was 7 yards, what is the length of each piece?

Answer 1

Hi Robin,

Let's use the variable, x , to represent the length of the longer segment.

Then we can write the following expression to represent the length of the shorter segment:

x + 1

2

Since the entire piece was 7 yards long , we can write and solve the following equation to find the length of the longer piece first:

x + 1 + x = 7

2

3x + 1 = 7

2

3x + 1 - 1 = 7 - 1

2

3x = 6

2

2 • 3x = 6 • 2

3 2 3

x = 4 yards

The longer segment will be 4 yards long.

The shorter segment will be 4/2 + 1 = 2 + 1 = 3 yards