All ACT Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #61 : Trigonometry
If , what is if is between and ?
Recall that .
Therefore, we are looking for or .
Now, this has a reference angle of , but it is in the third quadrant. This means that the value will be negative. The value of is . However, given the quadrant of our angle, it will be .
Example Question #61 : Trigonometry
What is the sine of the angle formed between the origin and the point if that angle is formed with one side of the angle beginning on the -axis and then rotating counter-clockwise to ?
You can begin by imagining a little triangle in the fourth quadrant to find your reference angle. It would look like this:
Now, to find the sine of that angle, you will need to find the hypotenuse of the triangle. Using the Pythagorean Theorem, , where and are leg lengths and is the length of the hypotenuse, the hypotenuse is , or, for our data:
The sine of an angle is:
For our data, this is:
Since this is in the fourth quadrant, it is negative, because sine is negative in that quadrant.
Example Question #11 : Sine
What is the sine of the angle formed between the origin and the point if that angle is formed with one side of the angle beginning on the -axis and then rotating counter-clockwise to ?
You can begin by imagining a little triangle in the third quadrant to find your reference angle. It would look like this:
Now, to find the sine of that angle, you will need to find the hypotenuse of the triangle. Using the Pythagorean Theorem, , where and are leg lengths and is the length of the hypotenuse, the hypotenuse is , or, for our data:
The sine of an angle is:
For our data, this is:
Since this is in the third quadrant, it is negative, because sine is negative in that quadrant.
Example Question #62 : Trigonometry
If , what is the value of if ?
Recall that the triangle appears as follows in radians:
Now, the sine of is . However, if you rationalize the denominator, you get:
Since , we know that must be represent an angle in the third quadrant (where the sine function is negative). Adding its reference angle to , we get:
Therefore, we know that:
, meaning that