Answer:
Explanation:
The need is to find the area of the elongated plus sign inside the rectangle. The area of the rectangle itself is not needed. That elongated plus sign is where we will run into trouble. The center of that plus sign is included in both the vertical strip and the horizontal strip. So when we go to find the area of the plus sign, we include the center in one or the other, NOT BOTH. I included the area in the vertical strip so I eliminated it in the horizontal strip, creating 2 shorter strips on either side of the center.
The area for the vertical strip, including the center:
A = 3 * 26 (3 is the width and 26 is the length)
A = 78 square meters
Now for the horizontal strip...
The horizontal strip minus the center is
14 - 3 = 11; divide that 11 in half and we get the length of each short horizontal strip on either side of the center to be 5.5 meters long. Therefore, each short strip measures 5.5 (we have 2 of them).
A = 3(5.5) + 3(5.5) and
A = 16.5 + 16.5
A = 33
The sum of the long vertical and the 2 shorter horizontal areas is
78 + 33 = 111
Therefore, the total area of the colored portion is 111 square meters.