Val measures the perimeter of her rectangular garden as 80 ft. The width is 3x + 1 and the length is x – 5. What is the length and width in feet?

3 answers

2(3x+1) + 2(x-5) = 50

Easy to solve, find x, sub back into width and length expressions
2 (3x+1) + 2 (x-5) = 80
3x+1 + x-5 = 40
4 x = 44
x = 11
w = 33+1 = 34
L = 6

Note, since the width is much more than the length I suspect a typo.
Damon, thanks for catching my copy error.