Question

A sheet of cardboard 10 inches by 12 inches will be made into a box by cutting equal sized squares from each corner and folding up the four edges. if the area of the bade is to be 80 square inches, then what size square should be cut form each corner?

Answer 1

If we let x be the measure of the side of the squares that are to be cut out of the cardboard to form the box. The new dimensions of the base will then be:

Length = 12 - 2x
Width = 10 - 2x

The area is calculated by multiplying the length and width.

    Area = L x W

Substituting the expressions,

   80 = (12 - 2x)(10 - 2x)

The value of x from the equation is 1. 

The size of the square should be 1 in x 1 in.