The length of a rectangular floor is twice its width. The

Hi All,

This question can obviously be solved with a bit of Algebra and Geometry. You can also take those basic ideas, along with the answer choices (which are numbers) and TEST THE ANSWERS....

We're given a lot of information about a floor and a carpet on top of it:

1) The Floor's length is TWICE it's width.
2) The Carpet has the SAME length as the floor, but it's width is 2 feet less than the width of the floor
3) The area of the carpet is 160 ft^2.

We're asked to find the length of the floor (which is the same as the length of the carpet).

Since the area of the carpet is a "round number", it's likely that it's dimensions are probably round numbers.

Let's TEST Answer B:

Area of carpet is 160
If length = 16, then width = 10
Since the carpet width is 2 less than the floor width, the dimensions of the floor would be...
Length = 16, width = 12.
This does NOT match (the length is supposed to be TWICE the width. Eliminate B (and A, since a length of 8 would be way too small).

Let's TEST Answer C:

Area of carpet is 160
If length = 20, then width = 8
Since the carpet width is 2 less than the floor width....
Length = 20, width = 10.
This DOES match (the length IS TWICE the width), so this MUST be the answer.

Final Answer:

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich