check the picture below.
so the composite is really just two triangles, with a base of 7 and an altitude of 2, and a 7x4 rectangle in the middle. So, we can just get the area of each figure and sum them up.
[tex]\bf \stackrel{\textit{two triangles}}{2\left[\cfrac{1}{2}(7)(2) \right]}~~~~+~~~~\stackrel{\textit{a rectangle}}{(7\cdot 4)}[/tex]
