Find the surface area of the regular pyramid shown to the nearest whole number

First step is to get rid of the square root. remember that a square root is the same as raising to the (1/2) power. see below: multiply exponents per exponent rules to get: remember you subtract exponents from the denominator and add exponents in the numerator so: simplify further: so a is the correct choice. if you don't understand this google exponent rules and it will you understand. look at the image results.

The answer is 60.9774

Recall that area of the triangle is 1/2*(base)*(height)1/2*(13)*(17) = 110.5the answer is 110.5