A steel support beam of length 6.5m is connected to a wall at a height of 4.7m from the ground. Find the distance (to the nearest cm) between the base of the building and the point where the beam is joined to the ground.

1. 3/6 or 1/22. 1/123. 1/84. 1/105. 2/12 or 1/6

So the first thing we do is to multiply the top equation by 3. the reason i want to do this is i notice there will be a 6y on both equations and can possibly add/subtract them. so we get 6y = -3x + 27. adding that and the second equation we get 6x = 27-15 which is 12. divide by 6 and we get 2. ∴ x = 2. substituting 2 into the first equation we get 2y = -2 + 9 which is 7. divide by 2 and we get 7/2. ∴ y = 7/2, x = 2.