Knitting: you are knitting a blanket. you want the area of the blanket to be 24ft^2. you want the length of the blanket to be 2 feet longer than the width. what should the dimensions of the blanket be?

You can use factors to solve.  Determine all the factor pairs of 24, find the two that are two numbers apart.
1, 24 X
2, 12 X
3, 8 X
4, 6 YES!

Algebraic way to solve using Quadratics:
l = 2 + w

A = lw

A = (2 + w)w  Substitute (2 + w) for l

24 = (2 + w)w  Substitute 24 in for the area

24 = 2w + w^2  Distribute

w^2 + 2w - 24 = 0  Set equal to 0 (put in standard form)

(w + 6) (w - 4) = 0  Factor

w + 6 = 0  and w - 4 = 0    Set each factor equal to 0.

So w= -6 or w = 4 ... -6 makes no sense for a length!  So the width must be 4 and the length will be 4 + 2, which is 6.