Question

The pyramid shown has a square base that is 24 inches on each side. The slant height is 20 inches. What is the surface area of the pyramid ?

Answer 1

the base of the pyramid is a square, meaning all of its sides are 24 inches.

the slant-height, or the altitude of the triangular face, is 20 inches.

now, we can simply get the area of the squarish base, and all four triangular faces, since each one has a base of 24 and a height of 20, sum them up, and that's the area of the pyramid.

`\bf \stackrel{\textit{area of the base}}{(24\cdot 24)}~~+~~\stackrel{\textit{area of the four triangles}}{4\left[\cfrac{1}{2}(24)(20) \right]}\implies 576~~+~~960\implies 1536`