Question

A sandbox has an area of 26 square feet, and the length is 5 feet. What is the width of the sandbox?

Answer 1

See a solution process below:

Explanation:

The area of a rectangle (assuming the sandbox is rectangular) is:

`A = l xx w` where:

`A` is the Area of the rectangle: 26 square feet for this problem.

`l` is the Length of the rectangle: 5 feet for this problem.

`w` is the Width of the rectangle: What we are solving for in this problem.

Substituting for `A` and `l` and solving for `w` gives:

`26"ft"^2 = 5"ft" xx w`

`(26"ft"^2)/color(red)(5"ft") = (5"ft" xx w)/color(red)(5"ft")`

`(26"ft"xx"ft")/color(red)(5"ft") = (color(red)(cancel(color(black)(5"ft"))) xx w)/cancel(color(red)(5"ft"))`

`(26"ft"xxcolor(red)(cancel(color(black)("ft"))))/color(red)(5color(black)(cancel(color(black)("ft")))) = w`

`(26"ft")/color(red)(5) = w`

Or

`26/5"ft" = w`

Or

`5 1/5"ft" = w`