Pearson Geometry Common Core, 2011
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Pearson Geometry Common Core, 2011 View details
4. Angles of Elevation and Depression
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Exercise 40 Page 521

Determine the trigonometric ratio to use according to the given information and the unknown.

38.2 ft

Practice makes perfect

We are given the length of the hypotenuse and the measure of an acute angle of a right triangle. We want to find the length of one of the legs.

Note that the given side is the hypotenuse, and the side we want to find is opposite to the given angle. Therefore, we will use the sine ratio. sin θ = Length of leg opposite toθ/Length of hypotenuse In our triangle, we have that θ =24^(∘) and the length of the hypotenuse is 94ft. We want to find the length of the leg opposite to the angle.
sin θ = opposite/hypotenuse
sin 24^(∘) = x/94
Solve for x
sin 24^(∘) * 94 = x
x =sin 24^(∘) * 94
x=38.23324...
x≈ 38.2