Four equal squares are overlapped to form the given figure. If each of the four squares has an area of $3 \mathrm{~cm}^{2}$, what is the area of this figure?

![](https://cdn.mathpix.com/cropped/2024_05_01_666a1aec7e447b0a6cbeg-022.jpg?height=372&width=671&top_left_y=445&top_left_x=732)
If the area of each square is $3 \mathrm{~cm}^{2}$ and each of them is divided into 16 smaller squares, then the area of each smaller square is $\frac{3}{16} \mathrm{~cm}^{2}$. Since there are a total of 6 smaller squares overlapping in the 4 squares, we have that the area of the figure is

$$
4 \times 3-6 \times \frac{3}{16}=12-\frac{9}{8}=\frac{87}{8}=10.875 \mathrm{~cm}^{2}
$$