Question

Find the surface area of the solid. Round to the nearest whole unit, if necessary. A square pyramid with a base area of 9 ft² and a slant height of 8 ft.

Answer 1

To begin, if the base is a square, then each side of this square would be 3 ft. there are 4 traingles, and the area of a triangle is 1/2bh, the height being the slant height and the base being one side of the square. Therefore, the surface area is 4(1/2)(3)(8)+9=57 ft^2

Answer 2

To the risk of sounding redundant.

check the picture below, so, that's the pyramid, the base is a 3x3 and therefore has an area of 9 ft².

the slant height of the pyramid, is really the "altitude" or height of the triangular face, so each triangular face is just a triangle with a base of 3, and a height of 8.

$\bf \stackrel{\textit{4 triangular faces' area}}{4\left[\frac{1}{2}(3)(8) \right]}~~+~~\stackrel{\textit{area of its base}}{9}$