Question

A student cuts 1/3 of a coil of wire. He then cuts out another piece that was 8 meters long (I assume from the remaining coil). The two pieces of cut off wire are only half the total length of the wire. How long was the coil before the student cut it? I am getting 25, 50, to 150m but my equation doesn't match each time I check. Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

We know that after cutting 1/3 of the coil and 8m of the coil, 1/2 of the coil remains. This can be written as 1/3 + x = 1/2, where x will be 1/6. We know that this 1/6 of the coil is 8m, so the total length of the coil is 8 * 6 = 48m because one coil = 6 subcoils each of 8m.