Video: Identifying Shapes

Video Transcript

For the figure below, identify the shape of the bases or base. Then classify the figure.

Here we can see the base is at the bottom. Now this isn’t always the case but usually the polyhedron sits on the base. And what is a polyhedron? It’s a solid with a flat surface that are polygons.

So here we can see that our base is the shape of a rectangle. Now we need to decide if this is a rectangular prism or a rectangular pyramid. A prism is a polyhedron with two parallel congruent faces called basis, whereas a pyramid is a polyhedron with one base that is a polygon and faces that are triangles.

Here we can see that we have one base and the rest are triangular faces. That means we have a pyramid. Therefore, this is a rectangular pyramid. Therefore, the shape of the base is a rectangle, and the figure is a rectangular pyramid.