Question

Please show me how to set it up and solve:

You are making a rectangular table. The area of the table should be 10ft squared. You want the length of the table to be 1ft shorter than twice its width. What should the dimensions of the able be?

Answer 1

They should be 5 as the length and 2 as the width.

Answer 2

as for the setup:

let the width be w
so, the length is 2w-1

area = w(2w-1) = 10
2w^2 - w - 10 = 0
(2w-5)(w+2) = 0
w = 2.5
so, 2w-1 = 4

the table is 2.5 x 4

Note that Kelli set it up so length = 2w+1