Area of a rectangle

HOME

Math Central

Quandaries & Queries

Subject: area
Name: kyle
Who are you: Student

paul has enough material to make a fence 22 feet long. he will use this material to
fence of a rectangular section of his yard. the rectangles sides must all be whole numbers.
i am having a hard time finding the greatest and the least area that he can enclose his fence

Hi Kyle,

If you have 22 ft of material to fence a rectangular section, then the width of the rectangle plus the height must be half of that [WHY?] - so, 11 ft. Since you are told the sides must have whole number lengths, you have just a few possibilities to check:

width height

1 10

2 9

3 8

4 7

5 6

You can test each pair to see which gives you the largest and smallest areas.

This method would probably not be a good approach if you didn't know that the sides must be whole numbers.

Haley

Math Central is supported by the University of Regina and The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.