You may feel somewhat overwhelmed right now, because this question is giving the reader lots of information and tasks in a short paragraph. Let's break it down into pieces.
1. First, let's find the ratio of the lengths.
Since the ratio is 7 to 3, we can find the length of each licorice piece by setting its proportion over 10, since that is the sum of the ratio. Thus, one licorice piece has a length of 60 * 7/10 = 42 cm and the other has a length of 60 * 3/10 = 18 cm.
2. Now, let's create our squares.
Each piece is bent to form a square. In other words, the pieces is split into 4 equal sides. Thus, we can divide our lengths by 4. The first piece of licorice made into a square has side lengths of 42/4 = 10.5 cm. The second piece of licorice has side lengths of 18/4 = 4.5 cm.
3. Finding the area of our squares.
Now, all we need to do is find the sum of the areas of the squares. The first square has an area of
cm^2 and the second square has an area of
cm^2. Thus, our answer is
130.5 cm^2.
