Question

Mr. Morris is going to save money and replace his sailboat's mainsail himself. He must determine the area of the mainsail in order to buy the correct amount of material. Calculate the area of the parallelogram to determine how much material should be purchased. Be sure to explain how to decompose this shape into rectangles and triangles. Describe their dimensions and show your work.

Answer 1

42

Explanation:

The widely used formula to find the area of a parellelogram is base * height so then 7 * 6 = 42

If you want to do it with triangles, you can split the diagram into two 2x7 triangles (total area 14) and one 7x4 rectangle (total area 28) which, when added, gives 42 as well.