i have no idea what to do
Hi Brittney. At first, I was confused myself. The exercise statement could be better worded, and using symbols
l and L to mean the same thing is not good.
Let's ignore the statement about reinforcing seedling trays (whatever it has to do with squares and rectangles). Here's my rewording of the exercise:
A 32cm length of wire is cut in two pieces. The first piece is bent into a square; the second piece is bent into a rectangle. As shown in the diagram, the square has side length x, and the rectangle measures 3 by L.
a(i) Write an equation in terms of L and x, for the original length of wire.
a(ii) Use the equation in part a(i) to show that L = 13 - 2x
Let S represent the sum of the areas of the square and rectangle.
b(i) Show that S = x^2 - 6x + 39
b(ii) Calculate values for x and L, when S = 30.25
For part a(i), use the fact that the original length of the wire equals the perimeter of the square plus the perimeter of the rectangle.
Part a(ii) asks us to solve the equation in part a(i) for L.
For part b(i), first write expressions for the area of the square and the area of the rectangle. (For the rectangle's area, use the expression 13-2x instead of symbol L.) Then add the two area expressions.
Part b(ii) requires us to first solve the equation in part b(i), using S=30.25 (doing that yields possible values for x). For each x-value, we find the corresponding L-value, by using the equation in part a(ii).
If you're still confused, please explain where. Otherwise, if you need more help, please show your work so that we can see what you tried and how far you got. We'll continue from there.
?