Math help, please

Question

Makayla has two types of ropes. She wants to cut the ropes into pieces of the same length for butterfly knots.

84 inches and 116 inches .

a) Find the greatest possible length that she can cut for each piece, so that no rope will be left unused.

b) Write the sum of the two lengths and factor out the number you found in part a). What does the number inside the parentheses represent?

I know the answer to a) but I don't know b). Can someone help me with this question?

Answer 1

So (a) is the greatest common factor for 116 and 84 (4).

For (b) you add the two numbers together (116 + 84 = 200) and then factor out the number we found in (a), which is 4. So when 4 is factored out from 200 the answer is 4*(50). The number in the parentheses is the number of cuts of rope that would be made to use up all the rope for butterfly knots.