Question

what is the area of the trapezoid shown below?

Answer 1

The height of the trapezoid is 3 because the triangle is a 3-4-5 triangle (Pythagorean triplets).

Now find area of the rectangle by L*W.

The area of the rectangle is 12.

Now find the area of the triangle.

Area of a triangle is height * base /2.

Therefore the area of the triangle is 4*3/2=6.

Now combine the area of the rectangle and triangle.

The area of the trapezoid is 18.

Answer 2

check the picture below.

$\bf \textit{area of a trapezoid}\\\\ A=\cfrac{h(a+b)}{2}~~ \begin{cases} a,b=\stackrel{bases}{parallel~sides}\\ h=height\\[-0.5em] \hrulefill\\ a=\stackrel{4+4}{8}\\ b=4\\ h=3 \end{cases}\implies A=\cfrac{3(8+4)}{2}\implies A=18$