Work out the area of abcde. hard for me

1. find the area of the rectangle
2. find the area of the triangle 
3. add the areas for the total area

1. area of a rectangle = lw = 8x4 = 32cm
2. area of triangle = 1/2bh
    the height is the line drawn from the vertex A to the center of side BE
    the base is 1/2 the length of side BE therefore  base = 4
    because the hypotenuse is 5 and the height is 4 the laws of the pythagorean   theorem state that the base equals 3 (3-4-5 right triangle) 
   Therefore the area = 1/2(3)(4)= 1/2(12) =6cm
3. The total area equals 32cm + 6cm =38cm

The answer is 9.7 cm