A flowerbed is 3 3/4 meters long and 2 meters wide. Uncle James wants to build a border around the flowerbed. The width of the border is 1/2 meter. The cost of building the border is $20 per square meter. How much does Uncle James have to pay to have the border built.

Answer 1

Find the area of the original flower bed.
add 1 metre to both the length and the width, (1/2 m on each side)
so the area of the flowerbed and the border is 4 3/4 m by 3 m.
Find the area of the large rectangle

border area = area of large rectangle - area of original flower bed
---- multiply that by 20