Another way to find the total surface area of a pyramid resembles the way the total surface area of the prism is found – Add the areas of all the polygonal faces – the base and the lateral faces.

On the left is a square pyramid, in the middle is the square base of the pyramid, and on the right is a triangular lateral face of the pyramid

The total surface area of the pyramid would be:

Area of the square + 4(area of the triangles) = 36 + 4(15)= 36 + 60 = 96 units2

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