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Question

In a trapezoid ABCD, base AB has a length of 52 units, base CD has a length of 36 units, side AD has a length of 5 units, andside BC has a lenght of 12 units. What is the area of the trapezoid?

Answer 1

The area of a trapezoid is (b1+b2)/2 * h where b1 and b2 are the bases, and h is the heigth of the trapezoid. In your case, we don't know the height, only the 4 sides, so we need to calculate the height.

In a trapezoid with sides a, b, c, and d, we can calculate height as:

height^2= [(a+b-c+d)(-a+b+c+d)(a-b-c+d)(a+b-c-d)] ÷ (4(a-c))^2

In your given trapezoid, the height is 2.5828 yielding an area of 113.64 units.

Hope this helps!