A rectangular piece of paper has an area of 24 square inches. You trim the paper so that it fits into a square frame by trimming 3 inches from the length and 1 inch from the width of the paper. Write and solve an equation to find the side length of the resulting square paper.

Length of the square = 3 inches

Equation:   and

Step-by-step explanation:

Given

Area of the rectangle = 24

Required

Length of the square when the dimension of the rectangle is trimmed by 3 inches * 1 inches

Represent the dimension on the rectangle by L and W

Such that L represent Length and W, Width

This implies that

Represent the length of the rectangle by l

Such that

and (When trimmed)

Equate both expressions

Add 3 to both sides

Next is to list all possible dimensions of the rectangle;

From the list above, the only calculation that fits our solution is

Such that

By direct comparison of to ;

Recall that

and

Substitute 6 for L and 4 for W

and

in both cases

Hence, the length of the square is 3 inches

And the equation is   and