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Question from Mike, a student:

How do I find the area of a quadrilateral that has one sloped side?

Hi Mike,

Is this the shape you have?

shape

Are angles BAD and CDA right angles and do you know the lengths of the sides? If so then draw a line from B, perpendicular to AB and meeting CD at E.

shape

The quadrilateral is now composed of a rectangle with dimensions |AB| and |DA|, and a right triangle with base |CD| - |AB| and height |DA|.

I hope this helps,
Penny

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