Lillian,

I need a way to distinguish the lengths and widths of the two rectangles so I am going to let l and w be the length and width of the first rectangle and L and W the length and width of the second, all in centimeters. You are given four facts, each of which gives an equation involving some of the variables l, w, L and W.

The first fact is "A rectangle is 5cm longer than twice its width." This is the first rectangle so twice its width is 2w cm and 5 cm longer than this is 2w + 5 cm. You are told that this is the length of the first rectangle so the first equation is

l = 2w + 5

The second fact is "The width of another rectangle is 3cm less than the width of the first rectangle." What is the width the first rectangle? What is 3 cm less than this? Thus

W = ...

What are the other two equations?

Can you solve the problem from here? If you have difficulty write back and tell us what you did.

Penny