well, the area of a trapezoid is A = (\(b_{1}\) + \(b_{2}\)) h 1/2 so you can use the area of a parallelogram, which is A = l w, by splitting the trapezoid into 2 triangles and one rectangle. So you'd use A = l w for the rectangle and A = 1/2bh for the triangles. You'd get the same answer!
