Geometry word problems, step by step

A garden, a rug, a picture frame — the shape is described in words and never drawn.

The question

What is the distance all the way around it, in meters?

The tennis court at Jordan's sports club is a rectangle 11 meters long and 8 meters wide.

numbers:2(11 + 8)

2 × (11 + 8)

asked:What is the distance all the way around it, in meters?

2 × (11 + 8) =38

38 meters

Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
Now the numbers: 2 and (11 + 8). Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
Equal groups, counted up all at once. So this one is a multiplication: 2 × (11 + 8).
2 × (11 + 8) = 38 meters. And answer the question that was ASKED — "What is the distance all the way around it, in meters?" — in meters, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.

How it works.

01
Read it through once. Grabbing the numbers on the first read means choosing an operation before you know the story, and that choice is the only hard part of a word problem.
02
Now the numbers: 2 and (11 + 8). Finding them is not the same as knowing what to do with them — that comes next, and it comes from the story rather than from the numbers.
03
Equal groups, counted up all at once. So this one is a multiplication: 2 × (11 + 8).
04
2 × (11 + 8) = 38 meters. And answer the question that was ASKED — "What is the distance all the way around it, in meters?" — in meters, because the sum on its own is not yet an answer.