Question

The surface area of a square pyramid is 136 square inches. The base length is 4 inches. What is the slant height? please help!

Answer 1

the surface area is 136

you need to subtract the surface area of the base. It is a square pyramid, so both the sides are 4 inches, meaning you need to multiply 4x4 which is 16 and subtract it from the rest of the area. 136-16=120

There are four identical triangles that have identical surface area because it is a square triangle. So you can divide 120 by four to get the area of one of the triangles. 120/4=30

the formula for the area of a triangle is 1/2 base x height. We know that the base is 4 because that is the length that was given to us. so we can plug in our numbers into the formula

30=1/2(4)(height)

30=2(height)

and from there we can solve. 30/2=15

the height of the triangle is 15, which is also the slant height

to check our work, 1/2(4)(15)=30

4x15=60

1/2x60=30