ShmoopTube

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I am the one who Shmoops!

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Find the area of this trapezoid.

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Here are the potential answers...

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Okay, so…we’re not given a lot of background here, but apparently we need to find the area

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of a trapezoid.

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Maybe this is a floor plan and we’re picking out carpeting?

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Or someone has a really odd-shaped head and is thinking about investing in a toupee?

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Regardless, let’s use what we know about trapezoids to put this puppy to bed.

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The formula for the area of a trapezoid is 1/2 base 1 plus base 2 times height.

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All right, Base 1 is the top base, which is labeled “x”...

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Base 2 is the bottom base, which is labeled 2x.

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And… whaddya know, we’ve got the height, too, which is also x.

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Now plug in our three pieces of known information and we should be done…

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To get our answer, all we have to do is multiple everything out following PEMDAS…

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…we have to do the stuff in parentheses first.

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So… x plus 2x is 3x.

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Multiplying everything out, we have 1/2 of 3x times x…or 3x squared…

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…which gives us 1.5x squared…

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…or option B.

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This is gonna be one heck of a hairpiece.

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Fingers crossed it doesn’t get too windy…

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