Picture the situation: draw a circle of diameter 12 in and another with the same center with radius 1/2 more than the previous circle:
The cross-section area will be the difference from the area of the bigger circle minus the area of the smaller circle.
Since the radius of a circle is half its diameter, then the radius of the inner circle is 6in.
Since the radius of the exterior circle is 1/2 in bigger than the radius of the inner circle, then its radius is 6.5 in.
Calculate both areas and then substract them:
The area of the cross section is:
Therefore, the area of the cross section is approximately 19.6 squared inches.