Question

Alec is trying to find the surface area of a shoe box. What unit of measure will he use?

Answer 1

The surface area is just the total of material used to make the object. So, in this case the surface area is just the material used to make the whole shoe box. 

In this question, it states that you have to find the unit of measure that Alec will use to find the surface area of the box. 
In this case, you can choose between inches, cm, ft, or many more. 
The first thing you do is find the best unit to measure the shoe box with. 

Cm would probably take to long to measure the lengths, and because 1 foot equals 12 inches, some sides of the box may not be 1 foot, so ft may be a little bit big. 
So the only unit in between cm and ft is inches. 
Inches would probably be the best unit of measure.