4. a) Joe got a surprise present for his birthday. It came in a cuboid-shaped box that was 16cm long and 11cm wide. What was the total surface area of the present?
b) In his excitement to see what was inside the box, Joe ripped the 2 square ends off the box. What was the total surface area of the box then?
The nets of some cuboids look like this. B A C B C This net is made up of 3 different rectangles.
To work out the total surface area in this situation, we need a third dimension, but which measurement is it? What do we call this dimension?
If this cuboid is 10cm long, 5cm wide and the third dimension is 2cm, how do we work out the total surface area?
Rectangle A = 2cm × 5cm = 10cm2 Rectangle B = 10cm × 2cm = 20cm2 Rectangle C = 10cm × 5cm = 50cm2