Polygons - Picture Frame Question

[anand.quantum]

Hi
In MGMAT Geometry Strategy guide chapter 1, Question no.10 in the excercises has a question on Picture and Frame. The square picture sits inside a bigger square frame. The question asks for the area of the picture. One side of the frame is given. I had approached this problem by first calculating the area of the frame (since it is a square and length of a side is known), but I could not proceed beyond that.

In the solution - they seem to "halved" the area of the picture ( 1/2 of Area of the Picture + Frame). I dont seem to understand this line of logical reasoning. Can somebody explain?

[anand.quantum]

Sorry, when I "carefully" read through the question - it does state that area of the picture equals the area of the frame. Since total area of the image is 36, the halving now makes sense. My bad :(.

[RonPurewal]

Sorry, when I "carefully" read through the question - it does state that area of the picture equals the area of the frame. Since total area of the image is 36, the halving now makes sense. My bad :(.

there's a fix for this sort of thing, and that is to write down (briefly, in heavily abbreviated form) the conditions in the problem.
if you get the conditions down on the paper (or yellow plastic pad) that you're looking at, you'll be much less likely to forget about them.