Question

Figure ABCD has vertices A(−4, 1), B(2, 1), C(2, −5), and D(−4, −3). What is the area of Figure ABCD?

Answer 1

Check the picture below.

so, notice, the composite is just a 4x6 rectangle, and a triangle whose base is 6 and altitude is 2.  So, we can simply get the area of each figure and sum them up.

$\bf \stackrel{\textit{area of rectangle}}{(4\cdot 6)}~~~~+~~~~\stackrel{\textit{area of triangle}}{\cfrac{1}{2}(6)(2)}$