Video Transcript
Determine, in square units, the area of the shown parallelogram.
In this question, we’re given a parallelogram on a grid. We can confirm for ourselves that it is a parallelogram as we have both pairs of opposite sides parallel. In order to find the area of this shape, we’ll need to recall the formula that the area of a parallelogram is equal to the base multiplied by the perpendicular height. It’s always useful to find the best way to apply the formula. For example, if we took this lower length as the base, which is highlighted in pink, then to find the perpendicular height, we’d need to find the length of this dotted line.
So the easier method to use is to take one of the vertical lines as the base instead. Let’s take this vertical line highlighted in green to be the base. To find the length of this, we can simply count the squares and see that it would be six units long. The perpendicular height here would therefore be a horizontal line joining the opposite side.
Counting the squares here would give us a perpendicular height of five units. We can then plug these values into the formula. The base is six units, and the perpendicular height is five units. Six multiplied by five gives us 30. Therefore, the final answer in square units for the area of this parallelogram is 30 square units.
