Question

Instructions: Find the length of the missing sides. Round youranswers to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

We can start by using a acronym that is SohCahToa.

SohCahToa stands for:

$sin=\frac{opposite}{hypotenuse};\text{ }cos=\frac{adjacent}{hypotenuse};\text{ }tan=\frac{opposite}{adjacent}$

Here we can find x or y first. It doesn't matter what order but for the sake we will find x first.

Using SohCahToa we use Tan because opposite of 32° is x and next to it is 15

So:

$tan(32\degree)=\frac{x}{15}\Rightarrow15*tan(32\degree)=x\Rightarrow x\approx9.4$

Now that we found x we can use SohCahToa again to find y or use the pythagorean theorem now that we know what x is. Let's use SohCahToa

So for y we use Cos :

$cos(32\degree)=\frac{15}{y}\Rightarrow y*cos(32\degree)=15\Rightarrow y=\frac{15}{cos(32\degree)}\Rightarrow y\approx17.7$

Answer: x=9.4 and y=17.7