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Example Questions
Example Question #11 : Right Triangles
Refer to the above diagram.
True or false:
True
False
True
The distance from the origin to is the absolute value of the
-coordinate of
, which is
. Similarly,
,
, and
. Also, since the axes intersect at right angles,
and
are both right, and, consequently, congruent.
According to the Side-Angle-Side Similarity Theorem (SASS), if two sides of a triangle are in proportion to the corresponding sides of a second triangle, and their included angles are congruent, the triangles are similar.
We can test the proportion statement
by substituting:
Test the truth of this statement by comparing their cross products:
The cross-products are equal, making the proportion statement true, so two pairs of sides are in proportion. Also, their included angles and
are congruent. This sets up the conditions of SASS, so
.
Example Question #201 : Triangles
Refer to the above figure.
True, false, or inconclusive: .
True
False
Inconclusive
True
is an altitude of
, so it divides the triangle into two smaller triangles similar to each other - that is, if we match the shorter legs, the longer legs, and the hypotenuses, the similarity statement is
.
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