the area of a rectangular wall of barn is 64 square feet. its length is 8 feet longer than twice its width. find the width of the wall of the barn

Question

mathstudent55 · Answer

We don't know the length or the width.
We are told the "length is 8 feet longer than twice its width."

We need to pick a variable for either the length or the width.
Since we are told about the length in terms of the width, we need to pick a variable to represent the width.

Choose a letter as a variable to represent the width.

anonymous · Answer

W

mathstudent55 · Answer

Great.
Now let's represent the length in terms of the width.

the length is 8 feet longer than twice its width

Since the width is W, what is twice the width (using W)?

anonymous · Answer

I don't know.  That's why I'm here.

mathstudent55 · Answer

What does the word "twice" mean?

anonymous · Answer

2x

mathstudent55 · Answer

Correct.
If the width is W, then twice the width means 2 times the width, and it's written in math as $2 \times x$ or simply $2x$.

mathstudent55 · Answer

Ok.
That's not all we know about the length.

mathstudent55 · Answer

the length is 8 feet longer than twice its width

mathstudent55 · Answer

The length is 8 feet more than 2W.

How do you represent "8 more" in math?

anonymous · Answer

AHHH... okay, I'm getting more frustrated than before I found this website.

anonymous · Answer

Never mind... the exam auto submitted and I missed the question

anonymous · Answer

So bummed... spent so much time on this one question that I ended up failing

mathstudent55 · Answer

The idea of OS is to help you with homework, not with tests or quizzes. While you are learning the material, you can come here as much as you need and have every problem you need help with explained to you. Some of the people here explain the problems step-by-step for you to get a good understanding. Once you've progressed from the homework stage to the test stage, you should have already learned the material well enough to be able to handle the test by yourself. What you should learn from this is that doing homework is crucial to learning math. The more you practice, the more proficient you become, and you'll then be able to handle the tests better when you have a limited amount of time. A test is not the time to open the textbook for the first time and to ask for help.

anonymous · Answer

That was a very back handed way of making a suggestion. I didn't solicit your judgement.  I was stuck on one equation... it happens. Hope you have a better, non-judgmental night.