Actually if I remember correctly the oval was more of a misshapen ovoid in shape such as a deformed egg might be with 1 large end the small end and non concentric sides. A lot of water has flowed beneath the bridges in the 55or so years since the teacher had drawn it on the chalk board there could have been as many as 5 of 6 different radius' in the thing expecting us to break the drawing into segments of triangles and cords calculating the areas of each then adding sum totals to find the total area Heck it may have even been an exercise in a class in high school as some of my middle school teachers taught classes in the freshmen and sophomore grades as well Our school had less than 250 students from gr1 through 12. I'm pretty sure I cheated to come up with the answer though