Question

How do the surface areas of similar prisms compare when dimensions are doubled?

Answer 1

Answer:

The surface area of the larger prism is 4 times the surface area of the smaller one.

(which agrees with answer B in your list)

Step-by-step explanation:

Notice that the lateral surface area of prisms always consists of parallelograms, whose areas are given by the product base times height. = B x H

Therefore if the dimensions of the prism double, then the base and height of the parallelograms will double as well, making such individual ares of the lateral faces go from:

B x H  to -->  2 B x 2 H = 4 (B x H)

that is 4 times the original lateral face's area.

with the faces for the top and bottom bases of the prism, something similar happens, so we conclude that the surface area of the larger prism is 4 times the surface area of the smaller one.