Question

Harvey plans to use 5 ft of shelving for four shelves whose lengths are to be a series of consecutive even numbers. How many inches long should each shelf be?

Answer 1

First step convert 5 ft to inches, remembering that 1 foot = 12 inches

Next, let x = the length of the smallest shelf. The next consecutive even number is (x + 2) and the next is (x + 2 + 2), and so on for all four shelves.

Set the sum of all four shelves equal to the total inches given

Then solve for x

That will give you th shortest shelf, then solve for the lengths of the other three