A rectangular garden is to be twice as long as it is wide.

Hi All,

We're told that a rectangular garden is to be TWICE as long as it is wide and 360 total yards of fencing, including the gate, will completely enclose the garden. We're asked for the length of the garden, in yards. This question can be solved in a couple of different ways, including by TESTing THE ANSWERS.

The 360 cars of fencing means that the PERIMETER of the garden will be 360. Answers D and E are clearly far too big - if either of those were the length, then the perimeter would be GREATER than 360. Let's TEST Answer B first...

Answer B: 140 yards...
IF... the length is 140, then
the width is HALF of that, so the width is 70 and
the total perimeter would be 140+140+70+70 = 420 yards.
This is clearly TOO BIG (the perimeter is supposed to be 360 yards). Thus, we need a SHORTER length. There's only one answer remaining...

Final Answer: A

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

swerve wrote:A rectangular garden is to be twice as long as it is wide. If 360 yards of fencing, including the gate, will completely enclose the garden, what will be the length of the garden, in yards?

A. 120
B. 140
C. 160
D. 180
E. 200

The length of the rectangular garden is twice as long it is wide. Thus, we know:

length = 2(width)

Thus, we can let w = width and so 2w = length. The perimeter is 360 yards, so we can create the equation:


360 = 2(2w) + 2w

360 = 4w + 2w

360 = 6w

60 = w

Since the width of the garden is 60 yards, the length is 2 x 60 = 120 yards.

Answer: A