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

The formula for this would be base x height so 20x15 or 300

Answer 2

Welll....from the diagram, you can see you have two triangles (one on each side)

area of triangle = 1/2 base*height = 1/2 * 2 x 10 = 10 ft2 each

then you are left with a rectangle 13 ft x 10 ft = 130 ft^2

130 + 10 + 10 = 150 ft2

or you could just use the formula for area of parallelogram base * height = 15 * 10 = 150 square feet