# Wendy is making a blanket with a length of 5.4 ft., a width of 6.3 ft., and an area of 34.02 sq. ft. There is a 2 ft. wide border around the blanket. What is the area of the border?

## I tried doing this, again and again, multiple times, but I kept getting it wrong. Please help me!

27.4 sq. ft.

#### Explanation:

Let's first talk about the blanket. It's dimensions of 5.4 and 6.3 feet do indeed create an area of 34.02 sq. ft. So far so good.

Now to the border. We're told there is a 2ft border around the blanket (I'm going to assume it's on all 4 sides). We're looking for the area of the border.

There are a couple of ways to approach this - one is to find the border on each side and then sum up all 4 sides. It's a lot of work. The other way is to find the area of the border and blanket together, subtract out the blanket, and we'll have the border. Not much work - I like this one :)

Our borders then become $5.4 + 2 = 7.4$ and $6.3 + 2 = 8.3$ feet, giving a total area of:

$7.4 \times 8.3 = 61.42$ sq. ft.

We subtract out the blanket area to find the area of the border:

$61.42 - 34.02 = 27.4$ sq. ft.