Amachine cuts a strip of carpet into two pieces. the length of the smaller piece is 5 meters greater than the length of the larger piece. if the length of the smaller piece is 12 meters, the length of the bigger piece is c meters and the total length of the carpet is b meters.

Me with this assignment ! i only partially understand, so explain. also it's a work sample. at the championship bike race, steve and paula were fighting for first place. steve was 175 feet ahead of paula and had only 300 feet left to go. he was very tired and was going only 9 feet per second. paula was desperate to catch up and was going 15 feet per second. who won the bike race and by how far did she/he win?