Question

Your school is setting up a row of 5 tables for a craft fair. Each table is 72 inches long. The space between each pair of neighboring tables must be 48 inches. Write and evaluate an expression to find the length of the space needed for the tables from the beginning of the first table to the end of the last table.

Short answer

The length of space for tables is552 inches.

Step-by-step solution

Step-1 – Order of operations

To evaluate any expression involving more than one operation, follow the below order of operations:

• First evaluate expressions inside grouping symbols like parentheses ( ) or brackets [ ].
• Evaluate the exponents.
• Perform Multiplication and division from left to right.
• Perform addition and subtraction from left to right.

Step-2 – Given

A row contains 5 table, each of the table is 72 inches long.

And the space between each pair of neighboring tables must be 48 inches.

Step-3 – Add the numbers

So, the total space needed to set up the tables in a row, we will add the length of 5 tables and the 4 empty spaces between two neighboring tables.

So, the total space needed is

$\begin{array}{c}\text{5}\left(\text{lengthof1table}\right)+4\left(\text{spacebetweentwotable}\right)=5\left(72\right)+4\left(48\right)\\ =360+192\\ =552\end{array}$

Thus, the length of the space needed for the tables in a row is 552 inches.