What is the longest flagpole (in whole feet) that could be shipped in a box that measures 2 ft by 2 ft by 12 ft?

Pythagoras question. Because the question's really just asking you, what is the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle with adjacent and opposite sides of 2 and 12
so a^2+b^2=c^2
= 
4 + 144=148
The square root of 148=12.165 
round it down to 12 :)