Surface Areas and Volumes — Important Questions
13 hand-picked CBSE Class 10 Maths important questions for Surface Areas and Volumes, each with a full model answer — the formats and topics most likely to appear in your board exam.
- 13
- Questions
- 6
- Question types
- 32
- Total marks
- ₹0
- With answers
For a combined solid, volumes always add, but for surface area you add only the exposed curved/plane surfaces (never the hidden joining faces). For a cone always find the slant height first: . When a solid is melted and recast, volume stays constant.
About Surface Areas and Volumes
This chapter combines the standard solids (cylinder, cone, sphere, hemisphere) into real objects such as toys, tents, capsules, ice-cream cones and containers, and also covers melting and recasting one solid into another. Boards almost always set one case-study (4 marks) and one 5-mark question here. The single most common mistake is forgetting the slant height for cones and wrongly including hidden faces in surface area.
Key concepts & formulas
Cylinder: CSA , Volume . Cone: CSA , Volume . Sphere: SA , Volume . Hemisphere: CSA , TSA , Volume .
Volume of a combined solid sum of the volumes of its parts. Surface area sum of the exposed surfaces only; the shared or joined faces are not counted.
For any cone (or the conical part of a solid), . It is needed for CSA of a cone . Compute it before finding surface area.
When one solid is melted and moulded into another, the material (volume) is unchanged: Volume of old solid Volume of new solid. This gives the equation to find the unknown dimension.
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Important questions with answers
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| Question type | Count | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| MCQ | 4 | 1 |
| Assertion–Reason | 1 | 1 |
| Very Short | 2 | 2 |
| Short Answer | 3 | 3 |
| Long Answer | 2 | 5 |
| Case-based | 1 | 4 |
Multiple-choice questions (1 mark)
The total surface area of a solid hemisphere of radius is:
- (a)
- (b)
- (c)
- (d)
Show model answer
Answer: (a)
TSA of a solid hemisphere
A solid sphere of radius is melted and recast into small spheres each of radius . The number of small spheres formed is:
- (a)
- (b)
- (c)
- (d)
The curved surface area of a cone of radius and height is:
- (a)
- (b)
- (c)
- (d)
A metallic sphere of radius is melted and drawn into a solid cylinder of base radius . The height of the cylinder is:
- (a)
- (b)
- (c)
- (d)
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Practise free with the AI tutor →Assertion–Reason questions (1 mark)
Assertion (A): The total surface area of a solid hemisphere of radius is .
Reason (R): The curved surface area of a hemisphere is .
- (a)
Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b)
Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A
- (c)
A is true but R is false
- (d)
A is false but R is true
Show model answer
Answer: (d) A is false but R is true.
The curved surface area of a hemisphere is (R is true), but its total surface area also includes the flat circular base, giving ; hence A is false.
Very short answer questions (2 marks)
A cone and a cylinder have equal bases and equal heights. Write the ratio of their volumes. Also, if the volume of the cylinder is , find the volume of the cone.
Show model answer
, so the ratio is
Volume of cone
Two cubes each of volume are joined end to end. Find the surface area of the resulting cuboid.
Show model answer
Each cube has side The cuboid formed has dimensions
Surface area
Short answer questions (3 marks)
A toy is in the form of a cone mounted on a hemisphere of the same radius . The total height of the toy is . Find the total surface area of the toy.
Show model answer
Radius Height of cone
Slant height
TSA
A cylindrical container of radius and height is full of ice cream, which is to be distributed among children in cones of radius and height , each having a hemispherical top of the same radius. Find the number of such cones that can be filled.
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Volume of cylinder
Volume of one cone hemisphere
Number of cones
A solid iron cuboidal block of dimensions is recast into a hollow cylindrical pipe of internal radius and thickness . Find the length of the pipe.
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Volume of block
Internal radius , external radius
Volume of pipe
Set equal to :
Long answer questions (5 marks)
From a solid cylinder of height and diameter , a conical cavity of the same height and same diameter is hollowed out. Find (i) the total surface area and (ii) the volume of the remaining solid.
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Radius , height , slant height
(i) TSA
(ii) Volume
A farmer connects a pipe of internal diameter from a canal into a cylindrical tank of diameter and depth . If water flows through the pipe at the rate of , in how much time will the tank be filled completely?
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Radius of tank , depth Volume of tank
Pipe radius In hour water flows a length of
Volume of water per hour
Time
Case-based questions (4 marks)
A metal grain-silo is in the shape of a cylinder surmounted by a cone, as shown. The common radius is , the cylindrical part is high and the conical top is high.
(i) Find the slant height of the conical top.
(ii) Find the total volume of the silo.
(iii) Find the area of the metal sheet required to make the curved surfaces (cylinder and cone), ignoring the base.
Show model answer
(i)
(ii) Volume
(iii) Curved area
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