Question

Kirk and Montego took a mowing job 500 ft long and 400 ft wide. Each will mow half so each has to mow 100,000 area. Now I need to write a quadratic equation that could be used to find the width X that kirk should mow. Can't figure out

Answer 1

since area = width * length,
x = 1/2 (200,000 / 500)

Answer 2

Poorly worded question, where does the x come in?

The way I have seen this question before is as follows:

Kirk and Montego took a mowing job 500 ft long and 400 ft wide. Each will mow half so each has to mow 100,000 area, with Kirk moving a strip x ft wide, leaving Montego to mow the rectangle left over in the centre. Now I need to write a quadratic equation that could be used to find the width X that kirk should mow.

The field left for Montego will be (500-2x) by (400-2x) which should have an area of 100,000 ft^2
so that 2x<400, -----> x < 200
(500-2x)(400-2x) = 100000
200,000 - 1800x + 4x^2 = 100,000
x^2 - 450x + 25000 = 0

you will get two answers, one will be outside our restriction