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Maths I

Area

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In your General Exam you may need to work out the area of any of the following shapes; rectangle, triangle, rhombus, kite and parallelogram. You may also need to work out the area of combined shapes.

Calculating the area of a rectangle or of a triangle

For all the shapes you do calculations for, make sure that you don't confuse area (the space taken up by a surface) with perimeter (the distance round the outside of a shape).

Remember that areas are measured in square units - square centimetres cm2, square metres m2 etc.

The area of a rectangle

The area of a rectangle is found by multiplying the length by the breadth.

A rectangle. The length is 6 centimetres, and the width is 3.5 centimetres.

For this rectangle:

Area = length x breadth

= 6 \times 3.5

= 21cm^2

The area of a triangle

The area of a triangle is found by multiplying 1 \over 2 by the base by the height.

A right angled triangle. The height is 5 centimetres and the base is 8 centimetres.

For the first triangle:

Area = 1 \over 2 x base x height

= {1 \over 2} \times 8 \times 5

= 20cm^2

A scalene triangle. The longest edge along the base is 10 metres. The perpendicular height, meausred at a right angle, from this base to the opposite angle is 6 metres.

For the second triangle:

Area = 1 \over 2 x base x height

= {1 \over 2} \times 10 \times 6

= 30cm^2

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Back to Measure and Shape index

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Barry and Paul Chuckle.

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To me, to you...the Chuckle brothers learn some useful tips for measuring area

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