Basically what you need to do is draw 4 congruent rectangles and 2 comgriemt squares (The six sides of a rectangular prism). The sum of the area of these six quadrilaterals should equal 96. This would be my thought process.
Step 1: Sketch a Rectangular Prism
Step 2: Make some educated guesses on some possible side measurements for the quadrilaterals that form the prism.
Step 3: Guess and Check until the amount equals 96.
So we can guess that the sides of the rectangle might equal 2 and 3 units.
This would be 6 for the area. Times 4 for each of the 4 Rectangles. (24) and add the area of the ends of the prism (2*2*2) which is 8 and you will get 32.
Since we are looking for a surface area of 96 and not 32, we can assume that a 3*2*2 prism is not what we need. So we can try again with other values.
Let's try 6*3*3. 6*3*4 for the four rectangles plus 3*3*2 for the ends.