L-emental
Weekly Problem 28 - 2006
What can you say about the rectangles that form this L-shape?
What can you say about the rectangles that form this L-shape?
Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
Problem
Image
Two identical rectangular cards are glued together as shown, to form an 'L' shape.
The perimeter of this 'L' shape is 40 cm.
What can you say about the length and width of the original rectangles?
If you liked this problem, here is an NRICH task which challenges you to use similar mathematical ideas.
Student Solutions
The perimeter of the shape is 4 x length, so the original rectangles are 10 cm long.
There is insufficient information to be able to say anything about the width - except that it is less than 10 cm.