Come up with a situation where you might have to calculate the surface area of volume of a solid?

Perhaps, if you are buying new cylinder shaped cups, and you wanted to know A, if they would fit in the cabinet (surface area), and B, how much liquid they would hold (volume)

A situation in which you would need to calculate the surface area or volume of a solid would be when you are going to put up wallpaper in a room. You need to measure the room and the wallpaper. If you wanted to put up moldings on the walls too, than you would need to measure the surface area and volume of the moldings as well so you would know where to cut the wood to fit witht eh wall shape of the room.