Once we’ve drawn the net, we can see that there’s a square and four triangles. We could then transfer over any information we’ve been given about the dimensions of the pyramid. We must pay close attention to the height of the pyramid. When we’re working with the surface area of a pyramid, one of the things we might be asked for is the lateral surface area. This is the total area of just the lateral sides, but excluding the base. In our square-base pyramid, that would just be the four lateral triangles, but not the area of the square on the base.When we include the area of the base, that’s referred to as the total surface area. So to find the total surface area of this square-base pyramid, we’d have the total areas of the four triangles plus the area of the square on the base. When we’re looking at questions involving the surface area of a pyramid, we need to check if the word lateral is there or not.