Pearson Geometry Common Core, 2011
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Pearson Geometry Common Core, 2011 View details
Mid-Chapter Quiz
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Exercise 17 Page 514

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

15.0

Practice makes perfect

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

Note that the given side is opposite the given angle, and the side we want to find is adjacent to the given angle. Therefore, we will use the tangent ratio. tan θ = Length of leg opposite toθ/Length of leg adjacent toθ In our triangle, we have that θ =25^(∘) and the length of the opposite leg is 7. We want to find the length of the adjacent leg to the angle.
tan θ = opposite/adjacent
tan 25^(∘) = 7/x
Solve for x
tan 25^(∘) * x = 7
x = 7/tan 25^(∘)
x=15.01154...
x≈ 15.0