Let’s define the usable area of an 8.5-inch by 11-inch piece of paper as the rectangular space between the margins of that piece of paper. Assume the default margins in a word processor in a college’s computer lab are set up to be 1.25 inches wide (top and bottom) and 1 inch wide (left and right). Answer the following questions using this information.

a. Determine the amount of usable space, in square inches, on one side of an 8.5-inch by 11-inch piece of paper with the default margins of 1.25 inch and 1 inch.

b. The Green Falcons, a campus environmental club, has convinced their college’s computer lab to reduce the default margins in their word-processing software by x inches. Create and simplify the quadratic expression that represents the new usable area, in square inches, of one side of an 8.5-inch by 11-inch piece of paper if the default margins at the computer lab are each reduced by x inches.

c. Subtract the usable space in part (a) from the expression in part (b). Explain what this difference represents.

d. If 10 pages are printed using the new margins and as a result the computer lab saved one whole sheet of paper, then by how much did the computer lab reduce the margins? Round to the nearest tenth of an inch.