Archie is shopping for plant food for his indoor garden. He has two containers of food from which to choose. One container is a pail and the other is a box. The box contains one-third more
product than the pail. The amount of product in both the pail and the box is 8.75 pounds. If Archie
buys the pail of plant food, how many pounds of product will he get?
A 3.75 pounds
B 1.5 pounds
C 6.25 pounds
D 12.5 pounds

Best answer that i found on yahoo ok   set :   x= length of 2nd piece in cm  x- 3= length of 1st piece in cm  x-4= length of 3rd piece in cm  then since you know they all came from the 20 cm ribbon you add them together and set them equal to 20x+ x-3 +x-4 = 20  3x - 7= 20  3x= 27  x= 9  the shortest piece is the third piece which is x- 4  x-4  9-4 = 5  the length of the smallest piece is 5 cm.  the other lengths are  9 cm  6 cm