Greg has a piece of rope that is 18 ft long. He wants to cut it into two pieces so that the longer piece is 2 ft less than 3 times the length of the shorter piece.

How long will each piece of rope be?

Shorter piece: ft
Longer piece: ft

Question

Greg has a piece of rope that is 18 ft long. He wants to cut it into two pieces so that the longer piece is 2 ft less than 3 times the length of the shorter piece.
 
How long will each piece of rope be?
 
Shorter piece:    ft
Longer piece:     ft

anonymous · Answer

Let's say when you cut the rope into two pieces, the first piece is of length x, and the second piece is of length y, so we know that x + y = 18. Now let's say that x is the longer of the two pieces, we can then turn the second statement into another equation, x = 3y -2. Now you have a system of equations that you can solve for x and y. Hopefully that helped.