Explanation: 1. Cut the shape in half. Now you have a square and a triangular shape.
2. The square is 12 inches on all four sides. 12 • 12 = 144. 144 is the area for the square.
3. Now, the triangular shape. The bottom of the shape is 12 because we divided the total 24 in half with the square. The left side (the longer side) of the shape is also 12 because it is parallel to the square with 12 as the same measurement. The right side (the shorter side) of the shape is 6 because it's half the size of the square’s length. The length of the top of the shape is also 12 because it is half of the square’s width of 24.
4. Now that we have found the measurements of the triangular shape, we can multiply (length • width) and add. The square is 144 units (12•12=144) and the triangular shape is 72 (12•6=72). 144 + 72= 216.
Since all 5 terms are like terms they can all be combined into 1 term. For example, 3x + 8x + 5x + 4x + 19x = ?. Since they all have the term x they can be combined into 39x. That leaves 1 term.
