Problem

6. A rectangular lawn measuring 8 m by 4 m is surrounded by a flower bed of uniform width. The combined area of the lawn and the flower bed is 165 m2. What is the width of the flower bed?

Answer

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Answer

The width of the flower bed is 72 meters or 3.5 meters.

Steps

Step 1 :Let the width of the flower bed be denoted as x. The dimensions of the lawn and flower bed combined would be (8+2x) and (4+2x).

Step 2 :The area of the lawn is 8×4=32 square meters.

Step 3 :The area of the lawn and flower bed combined is 165 square meters. So, we can set up an equation: (8+2x)(4+2x)=165.

Step 4 :Solving this equation, we get two possible solutions for x: 192 and 72.

Step 5 :Since the width of the flower bed cannot be negative, we discard the 192 solution.

Step 6 :The width of the flower bed is 72 meters or 3.5 meters.

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