A painter is placing a ladder to reach the third story window, which is 18 feet...

V

vlonejose

New member
Joined
Jan 25, 2017
Messages
8
A painter is placing a ladder to reach the third story window, which is 18 feet above the ground and makes an angle with the ground of 80[FONT=&quot]°[/FONT]
.

How far out from the building does the base of the ladder need to be positioned? Round your answer to the nearest tenth.

The base of the ladder needs to be positioned ______ feet out from the building.

:?::?:
 
I presume it is the ladder that "makes an angle with the ground of 80°". Do you know how the tangent function is defined?
 
vlonejose said:
i am still in algebra 1 .. i am just taking a practice geometry test for next year
Click to expand...

Well, then I think the practice test has done its job. It's shown that you're, at the present moment in time, unprepared to tackle such geometry questions. There's no shame in that. Don't ever be afraid to admit you don't know something - that's the first step to learning. But, for now, my opinion is that you not worry about what you'll learn in the future, and focus on your present studies instead. Believe it or not, the algebra you're learning now will help you in every math course you take for the rest of your life, even geometry. When you actually enroll in the geometry course next year, I highly doubt your teacher will expect you to know anything that's on the practice exam. He/she will teach you (and the rest of the class) what you need to know to do well in that course.
 
We use "right-triangle trigonometry" to solve questions like this.

A ladder leaning against a wall forms a right triangle. The lengths of the sides of this triangle, as well as the interior angles, are all related to one another in various ways.

To start learning about trigonometry, and how it can be used to solve problems involving right triangles, you can google "right triangle trigonometry" and check out some web sites.

Here are two such sites (the Khan Academy includes short videos):

https://www.mathsisfun.com/sine-cosine-tangent.html

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/trigonometry/trigonometry-right-triangles

Have fun, and, if you don't understand something in particular, ask us about it! :cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top