Surface Area of a Cuboid Practice Problems & Solutions

Every cuboid is made up of rectangles. These rectangles are the faces of the cuboid.

As we know that in a rectangle the parallel faces are equal to each other, we can conclude that for each face found there will be two rectangles.

Let's first look at the face painted orange,

It has width and height, 5 and 3, so we already know that they are two rectangles of size 5x6

Now let's look at the side faces, they also have a height of 3, but their width is 6,

And then we understand that there are two more rectangles of 3x6

Now let's look at the top and bottom faces, we see that their dimensions are 5 and 6,

Therefore, there are two more rectangles that are size 5x6

That is, there are
2 rectangles 5X6

2 rectangles 3X5

2 rectangles 6X3

First, we recall the formula for the surface area of a cuboid:

(width*length + height*width + height*length) *2

As in the cuboid the opposite faces are equal to each other, the given data is sufficient to arrive at a solution.

We replace the data in the formula:

(8*5+3*5+8*3) *2 =

(40+15+24) *2 =

79*2 =

158

Let's go through the options:

A - In this option, we can observe that there are two flaps on the same side.

If we try to turn this net into a box, we should obtain a box where on one side there are two faces one on top of the other while the other side is "open",
meaning this net cannot be turned into a complete and full box.

B - This net looks valid at first glance, but we need to verify that it matches the box we want to draw.

In the original box, we see that we have four flaps of size 9*4, and only two flaps of size 4*4,
if we look at the net we can see that the situation is reversed, there are four flaps of size 4*4 and two flaps of size 9*4,
therefore we can conclude that this net is not suitable.

C - This net at first glance looks valid, it has flaps on both sides so it will close into a box.

Additionally, it matches our drawing - it has four flaps of size 9*4 and two flaps of size 4*4.

Therefore, we can conclude that this net is indeed the correct net.

D - In this net we can see that there are two flaps on the same side, therefore this net will not succeed in becoming a box if we try to create it.

Let's see what rectangles we have:

8*5

8*12

5*12

Let's review the formula for the surface area of a rectangular prism:

(length X width + length X height + width X height) * 2

Now let's substitute all this into the exercise:

(8*5+12*8+12*5)*2=
(40+96+60)*2=
196*2= 392

This is the solution!

Remember that the formula for the surface area of a cuboid is:

(length X width + length X height + width X height) 2

We input the known data into the formula:

2*(3*2+2*5+3*5)

2*(6+10+15)

2*31 = 62