Question

23 Answer:

A rectangle has an area given by A = x2 + 5x + 6
Find an expression for the possible width of the rectangle.

Answer 1

Your are given an expression for the area. But you also know that the area of a rectangle is length x width. So the expression you were given
`x^(2) + 5x + 6` must be equal to the length of the rectangle x its width. This means that by factoring the expression we can see expressions for the length and the width.

Factoring
`x^(2) + 5x + 6` we get (x+2)(x+3). One of these factors is the width and the other is the length. If you believe that lengths are always longer than widths, then the length will be a much larger factor such as this, x+3.

** "x" does not represent either the width or length. It is simply a number which the width is 2 larger than and the length is 3 larger than. **

Thus, your answer could either be 2 or 3 depends on how you will do it.