Question

Jackie has 3 square tablecloths with each side equal to k units. For each piece, she does something different to it according to each part below:

Jackie stitched rectangular strips of cloth along two adjacent sides of the tablecloth to increase its length and width by p units each. What will be the change in the area of the tablecloth?

Answer 1

Well, first we'd have to know whether Jackie is lazy and just stitches strips of the same length to 2 adjacent sides of the cloth. If so, then there'll be a little nick in the corner of the resulting tablecloth:

Answer 2

But if Jackie is very fussy, she will make one strip p units longer than the other strip, resulting in a tablecloth that looks like this:

Answer 3

So, which will it be? Are we in a picky or in a lenient mood this fine afternoon?