12:04 Area Problems Outcome MS41

Prep Quiz 12:04 Area problems

Calculate the area of each figure.
1 2 3
3 cm 2 cm

8 cm 6 cm 10 cm

4 5
4 cm 4 cm

6 cm 7 cm
How many square tiles 10 cm by 10 cm will it take to cover a rectangular area:
6 10 cm 80 cm? 7 10 cm 2 m? 8 50 cm 50 cm?
9 50 cm 5 m?
10 What is the perimeter of the rectangle in question 1?

Obviously the measurement of area can occur in a variety of situations. Some everyday examples
would be tiling, wallpapering, making curtains, laying turf and painting.
The problems in this section ask you to apply your ability to find the areas of rectangles and
triangles in various situations. It is also possible to find the areas of different common shapes from
the area of a rectangle.

Worked example 1

Square tiles
are often
used to cover
walls.

By cutting and pasting this parallelogram,

form a rectangle and hence find its area.
Solution
If we cut the parallelogram as shown,
and slide the left triangle across to the right,
we get a rectangle 4 cm by 3 cm.
A=43 3 cm
= 12
Area of rectangle = 12 cm2
Area of the parallelogram is 12 cm2.
4 cm

Chapter 12 Area and Volume 375

 Worked example 2
A rectangular garden bed is 5 m by 4 m. A path 1 m wide is to be put around the garden.
What will be the area that needs to be paved?
Solution
The path and garden would look like the diagram below. Important Notice!
Always draw a diagram
7m of the problem if there
1m Because the path is 1 m wide, is not one with the
5m the outer dimensions would question.
be 7 m by 6 m.
Garden 4 m 6m

Area of path = area of outer rectangle area of garden

= (7 6) m2 (5 4) m2
= 42 m2 20 m2
= 22 m2
Area of path will be 22 m2.

Exercise 12:04
1 Draw a diagram to show how each figure could be cut along the dotted lines and pieced
together to form a rectangle. Thus find the area of each figure.
a b 5 cm

3 cm
4 cm
Draw and
5 cm cut them
4 cm out if you
c d like.

2 cm e
3 cm
2 cm 2 cm
4 cm 35 cm
2 cm 2 cm
3 cm
7 cm 2 cm

f g

6 cm
8 cm

2 cm 11 cm 3 cm
9 cm

376 New Signpost Mathematics Enhanced 7

2 Taniths parents are going to carpet her bedroom. 4m
Her bedroom is rectangular, measuring 4 m 3 m.
If the carpet costs $67 per square metre, what will
3m
be the cost of carpeting the room?

3 Jasons fence needs painting with paint that covers 16 square metres for each litre of paint.
If the fence is rectangular in shape and is 80 m long by 2 m high, how many litres of paint
will be needed?
4 An athletics club gave pennants to the winners of each final race. 15 cm
The pennants had the dimensions shown in the diagram.
Find the area of each pennant. 4m

5 A garden 6 m by 25 m is to have a path 05 m wide around its border.

If the garden is rectangular in shape, find:
30 cm
a the area of the garden
b the total area of the garden and path
c the area of the path

6 Brent needed to cover his Maths textbook because he wanted to take care of it. If the book
measured 40 cm by 245 cm when opened out flat, what area of plastic would he need if he
wanted an extra 2 cm around each edge to tuck in?
7 5m How much fertiliser would be needed to cover a lawn
2m with the measurements shown if 1 kg will cover 10 m2?
6m

4m

8 a Fred the farmer has a rectangular field measuring 400 m

80 m by 400 m. How many hectares of potatoes
can he grow in this field? 100 m
b Freds neighbour, Barney, has a field like the one shown
in the diagram. Can he plant more potatoes than Fred? 340 m

9 A square piece of land is one kilometre on each side. How many hectares would this be?
10 A curtain needs to be made for a window that is 25 metres wide. If you need a length of
material that is three times the width of the window to allow for pleats and folds, and the
curtain is to have a drop (length) of 2 m, what area of material is needed?
11 Wallpaper comes in rolls that are 50 cm wide. What length of wallpaper would be needed to
cover two walls 4 m by 3 m high and one wall 25 m by 3 m high?
12 Floor tiles measure 300 mm by 300 mm. How many would be needed to cover a kitchen floor
measuring 24 m by 36 m?

Chapter 12 Area and Volume 377

 13 A wall is in the shape of a triangle on top of a rectangle
with the measurements shown. Find the area in m2 of
the wall.
Go to a brick wall, mark an area of 1 square metre and 9m
count the number of bricks in that square metre. 6m
Allowing for some breakages, calculate the number of
bricks required to build the wall.
10 m

14 a A company supplies turf, which comes in rolls 40 cm wide and 2 m long. How many rolls
must be ordered to cover an area 28 m by 24 m?
b If each roll costs $4.20, what is the cost of the turf?
c The same area could have been seeded. If a box of seed will cover 16 m2 and costs $18.50,
how much could have been saved on the cost of turf?
15 When laying tiles, an exact number may not cover an area, or a whole number may not lie
along each edge. Look at this diagram.
If the tiles are 10 cm 10 cm, This is true even
we can see that 15 tiles are though the area is
28 cm 45 cm,
needed, presuming that the
ie 1260 cm2.
28 cm pieces of tiles cut off are not Dividing this by
good enough to be used 100 cm2 (the tile area)
elsewhere. would suggest that
only 126 or 13 tiles
45 cm might be needed.

a How many 10 cm 10 cm tiles would be

needed to cover an area 325 m by 217 m?
b How many 300 mm by 300 mm tiles would I can see
be needed to cover an area 25 m by 38 m? an easy way to do
these. Can you?
ID 12:04

Refer to ID Card 4 on page xvii.

Identify figures (1) to (24).
Learn the terms you do not know.

12:04A Areas of plane figures

12:04B Carlas chicken run

Estimate the area

of the sail.

378 New Signpost Mathematics Enhanced 7