My teacher wants me to ask a question and I need help on figuring it out

Question

she asks what is the surface area of a cereal box with a height of 11 inches and a base of 8 inches with the top of the box being 3 inches

Answer 1

Surface Area means the sum of the areas of each face. A cereal box is a rectangular prism and it has 6 rectangular faces. (Think about the top, bottom, left, right, front, and back).

I find most students prefer to find the area of each face separately and add them together.

The area of the top and bottom are both:

A=(8in)(3in)

A=24in²

The area of the left and right are both:

A=(3in)(11in)

A = 33in²

The area of the front and back are both:

A=(8in)(11in)

A = 88in²

So now we can add those all together.

Top+Bottom+Left+Right+Front+Back

24in² + 24in² + 33in² + 33in² +.88in² + 88in² = 290in².

Hopefully that all makes sense!

Answer 2

What are these 11 inches and 8 inches

Are these radii or diameters of the box ?

Can not be areas as units are inches