The pyramid shown has a square base that is 14
centimeters on each side. the slant height is 15
centimeters. what is the surface area of the pyramid?

The base is found by 14 x 4 = 196cm^2
the triangular faces are found by the area of triangle formula which looks like this:
area = 1/2 x base x height. (the height is the slant height) so plug in values and you have:
area = 1/2 x 14 * 15 = 219cm^2
so each triangular face has surface area 219cm^2 (now, since there are 4 of these sides we need to do 219*4 = 876. Now add the base (196cm^2).
TOTAL SURFACE AREA = 876 + 196 = 1072cm^2