How would you rather do this . . . the easy way or the hard way ?
The easy way ? OK. I can't imagine why you made that decision,
but I'll try to live with it.
The hard way would be to cut up the figure into at least three separate
pieces, find the area of each piece, and then add up the areas.
The easy way is to find the area of the whole big rectangle, without the
bite taken out of the top. Then find the area of the bite, and subtract it
from the whole big rectangle.
-- Area of the whole big rectangle without the bite:
Length = 14 cm
Height = 12 cm
Area = (length) x (height) = 168 cm²
-- Area of the bitten-out piece:
Height = 7 cm
What is the width ? ? ?
Well, the length of the whole top edge of the big rectangle has to be
the same as the length of the bottom edge ... 14 cm.
On the top edge, we see that (5 cm + width of the bite + 5 cm) = 14 cm.
So the width of the bite is (14 - 10) = 4 cm
Area of the bite = (width) x (height) = (4cm) x (7 cm) = 28 cm²
Area of the (big rectangle) minus the (missing piece) =
(168 - 28) = 140 cm²
