Question

What is the surface area

Answer 1

Bear in mind that the area of a "parallelogram" is base * height.

notice the picture, the front and back parallelograms, have an altitude/height of 3 cm, and  a base of 8 cm, so the area of one of those two is 3*8.

as far as the left and right parallelograms, they have a base of 7 cm, but the altitude is also 3 cm, so the area of one of those is 3 *7.

bear in mind the altitude/height is the distance from the base to the top, and in this case is just 3 cm.

anyway, you have 4 parallelograms, get the area of each, add them up, and that's the surface area of the figure.

2(3*8) + 2(3*7).