To calculate the surface area of a triangular prism, a valid method involves decomposing the prism into its constituent shapes: triangles and rectangles.
The correct responses for calculating the surface area of a triangular prism based on the standard methods include:
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Decomposing the triangular prism into two triangular bases and three rectangular lateral faces. The surface area can be calculated by finding the area of the two triangular bases and adding it to the area of the three rectangles.
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Finding the sum of the area of the two triangles and the areas of the three rectangles. Each triangular base will be calculated with its own area formula, and each rectangle will also have its own area calculated using length and height.
Thus, the valid description from the options you provided is:
Decompose the triangular prism into two triangles and three rectangles. Find the sum of the area of all five shapes.
This option correctly identifies the shapes (two triangles and three rectangles) and discusses the summation of their areas correctly.
Other options that may lead to incorrect methods, such as incorrect sums or incorrect numbers of triangles and rectangles, are not valid.