High School

A shoe box is shaped like a rectangular prism. It is 39.4 centimeters long, 17.8 centimeters wide, and 11.4 centimeters tall. Jacob estimates that the surface area of the shoe box is about 2,800 square centimeters. Is his estimate reasonable?

Answer :

Jacob's estimate of the shoe box's surface area is reasonable, as the actual calculated surface area is 2706.8 cm², which is very close to his estimate of 2,800 cm².

To determine if Jacob's estimate of the surface area of a shoe box is reasonable, we need to calculate the actual surface area of the rectangular prism. The surface area (SA) of a rectangular prism is given by the formula SA = 2lw + 2lh + 2wh, where l is the length, w is the width, and h is the height of the prism. In this case, the shoe box has dimensions of 39.4 cm (length), 17.8 cm (width), and 11.4 cm (height).

Let's perform the calculation:

  • SA = 2(39.4 x 17.8) + 2(39.4 x 11.4) + 2(17.8 x 11.4)
  • SA = 2(701.32) + 2(449.16) + 2(202.92)
  • SA = 1402.64 + 898.32 + 405.84
  • SA = 2706.8 cm²

Jacob estimated the surface area to be about 2,800 cm², which is quite close to our calculated surface area of 2706.8 cm². Therefore, Jacob's estimate is reasonable.

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