Question

The perimeter of a basketball court is 280 ft. The length is 42 ft longer than the width. What are the dimensions of the court?

Answer 1

The length is 91 ft. and the width is 49

Explanation:

We're going to solve this problem using system of equations. We will use variable `l` for length and `w` for width. Also it's fairly safe to assume that the basketball court is rectangular.

The formula for perimeter of a rectangle is `2l+2w=p`. We know that the perimeter is 280 so our first equation will be `2l+2w=280`.

Our second equation will come from "The length is 42 ft longer than the width". If we turn that sentence into a formula we can get `l=42+w`.

Now we can plug in our second equation into our first for `l`
`2(42+w)+2w=280`

Now we may simplify and solve for `w`.
#84+2w+2w=280 84+4w=280 4w=196 w = 49#

Now we plug in our width into our second equation
`l=42+49`
`l=91`

So our final answer will be the length is 91 ft. and the width is 49.