math problem from may test

<p>can someone help me out w/ this problem?</p>

<p>here's the link:
<a href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/rs902002/Mathproblem.jpg%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/rs902002/Mathproblem.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>thanks</p>

<p>should be 40... 1 notched edge 2 inch long for every 4 inches. 80/4 = 20, so 20X2=40 inches.</p>

<p><em>edit: i realized it asked for the notched edge... whoops</em></p>

<p>It's 100 inches.
1) 80/4= 20
2) 20*(3+2) = 100</p>

<p>why is it 20 * (3+2) ? </p>

<p>i thought it was asking for the total length of the notched edges?</p>

<p>It's definitely 100</p>

<p>@Bigb14
1) I divided the entire side into parts of 4 inches.
2) I multiplied 20 by the sum of 3 and 2 (2 is the the sum of two sides of the triangle).</p>

<p>Bold notched edge... This question was definitely not on the may test. I doubt this is an official SAT question at all. The wording is ridiculous, it can be misinterpreted for many good reasons.</p>

<p>oh i got it, i misread it... :P </p>

<p>my bad</p>

<p>Is the question asking just for the extra part added by the triangle? (I.E. now there are 5 inches within the 4 inch area so the answer would be 80) or is it asking for the whole thing 3+2 inches which makes the answer 100??</p>

<p>There was a similar question on January with weird wording as well, so this very well could have been on May.</p>

<p>Maybe this question was part of the experimental math section on the May test. Otherwise, I can't see the CB allowing such an ambiguous question to be posed.</p>

<p>Oh yeah...and if this actually was on the SAT, how exactly did you obtain a printed version of the question?</p>