Final answer:
To find the surface area of a rectangular pyramid, calculate the area of the base and the four triangular faces and add them together. The base has an area of 32 cm², and each triangular face has an area of 4 cm². The total surface area is 48 cm².
Step-by-step explanation:
To find the surface area of a rectangular pyramid, we need to calculate the area of the base and the four triangular faces and add them together.
The area of the base can be found using the formula for the area of a rectangle, which is length times width. In this case, the length is 8 cm and the width is 4 cm, so the area of the base is 8 cm * 4 cm = 32 cm².
The area of each triangular face can be found using the formula for the area of a triangle, which is 1/2 times base times height. In this case, the base is 4 cm and the height is 2 cm, so the area of each triangular face is 1/2 * 4 cm * 2 cm = 4 cm².
Since there are four triangular faces, the total area of the triangular faces is 4 cm² * 4 = 16 cm².
To find the surface area, we add the area of the base and the area of the triangular faces together: 32 cm² + 16 cm² = 48 cm².