Question

A 35 ft pipe is cut into three pieces. The longest piece is three times longer than the shortest piece. The medium-sized piece is 5 feet longer than the shortest piece. How long is each piece?

Answer 1

I tried this:

Explanation:

Let us call the three pieces (long, short and medium): `l,m,s`.
We get:

`l+m+s=35`
`l=3s`
`m=s+5`

let us substitute the last 2 into the first:

`3s+s+5+s=35`

`5s=30`

`s=30/5=6"ft"`

so that:

`l=3*6=18"ft"`
`m=6+5=11"ft"`