Now, back to the question: it says here that the volume of the sphere is 972Pi, which will be (4/3)*Pi*(r^3):
972 = 1000 - 28 = 4*250 - 4*7 = 4*243
So you have that (4/3)*(r^3) = 4*243
This makes r^3 = 243*3 = 729 or 9^3, making r = 9.
This means that the total surface area will be 4Pi(r^2) = 4*81*Pi = 324Pi.
Since my answer is consistent with the OA, it was indeed just a typo.













