Okay so, basically its giving you the length and width and is asking for the area. In order to find the area you multiply the length by the width. Since there is a 2 inch boarder, you add 2 to each number. So 12 + 2 is 14 and 18 + 2 is 20, and 14 x 20 is 280! So the area would be 280 square inches. Unless you mean that 12 and 18 include the 2 inch boarder, so that is distracting information that is there to make sure you understand the concept by seeing if you know to discard the information. So in that case, the answer would be 12 x 18 which means your answer is 216 square inches.
