All High School Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Applying The Law Of Cosines
A triangle has sides of length 12, 17, and 22. Of the measures of the three interior angles, which is the greatest of the three?
We can apply the Law of Cosines to find the measure of this angle, which we will call :
The widest angle will be opposite the side of length 22, so we will set:
, ,
Example Question #1821 : High School Math
In , , , and . To the nearest tenth, what is ?
A triangle with these characteristics cannot exist.
By the Law of Cosines:
or, equivalently,
Substitute:
Example Question #1822 : High School Math
In this figure, angle and side . If angle , what is the length of side ?
For this problem, use the law of sines:
.
In this case, we have values that we can plug in:
Cross multiply:
Multiply both sides by :
Example Question #1823 : High School Math
In this figure and . If , what is ?
For this problem, use the law of sines:
.
In this case, we have values that we can plug in:
Example Question #95 : Trigonometry
In , , , and . To the nearest tenth, what is ?
Since we are given and want to find , we apply the Law of Sines, which states, in part,
and
Substitute in the above equation:
Cross-multiply and solve for :
Example Question #96 : Trigonometry
In , , , and . To the nearest tenth, what is ?
No triangle can exist with these characteristics.
Since we are given , , and , and want to find , we apply the Law of Sines, which states, in part,
.
Substitute and solve for :
Take the inverse sine of 0.6355:
There are two angles between and that have any given positive sine other than 1 - we get the other by subtracting the previous result from :
This, however, is impossible, since this would result in the sum of the triangle measures being greater than . This leaves as the only possible answer.
Example Question #3 : Graphs And Inverses Of Trigonometric Functions
In this figure, angle . If side and , what is the value of angle ?
Undefined
For this problem, use the law of sines:
.
In this case, we have values that we can plug in:
Example Question #1822 : High School Math
In this figure, if angle , side , and side , what is the value of angle ?
(NOTE: Figure not necessarily drawn to scale.)
Undefined
First, observe that this figure is clearly not drawn to scale. Now, we can solve using the law of sines:
.
In this case, we have values that we can plug in:
Example Question #1 : Finding Sides
There is not enough information
The side-angle-side (SAS) postulate can be used to determine that the triangles are similar. Both triangles share the angle farthest to the right. In the smaller triangle, the upper edge has a length of , and in the larger triangle is has a length of . In the smaller triangle, the bottom edge has a length of , and in the larger triangle is has a length of . We can test for comparison.
The statement is true, so the triangles must be similar.
We can use this ratio to solve for the missing side length.
To simplify, we will only use the lower edge and left edge comparison.
Cross multiply.
Example Question #1825 : High School Math
We can solve using the trigonometric definition of tangent.
We are given the angle and the adjacent side.
We can find with a calculator.