Please help?

Question

Please help?

anonymous · Answer

The bases of a trapezoid have lengths 50 and 75. Its diagonals have lengths 35 and 120. Find the area of the trapezoid.

jdoe0001 · Answer

is there a picture?

anonymous · Answer

Sure just a sec

anonymous · Answer

|dw:1385240010377:dw|

Sorry it's not all that accurate xD

jdoe0001 · Answer

hmmm....  how about a screenshot?

anonymous · Answer

There's no picture, sorry :P

jdoe0001 · Answer

ohh.. ok

anonymous · Answer

is it an isosoles trapezoid

jdoe0001 · Answer

hmmm... if it were an isosceles trapezoid... how come the diagonals differ?  one is 35 and the other 120..... doesn't sound like one

anonymous · Answer

No, because the diagonals are different like jdoe said

anonymous · Answer

The textbook told us to use similar triangles, and I only found the top and bottom triangles to be similar. I'm not sure how that would help us find the area though..

jdoe0001 · Answer

hmm ok .. so  I'm thinking that |dw:1385241489796:dw|

anonymous · Answer

you cant just assume that it has right angles

anonymous · Answer

It doesn't show any right angles..

jdoe0001 · Answer

so you  just need to find "h" or height, in this case at the bottom of it , using pythagorean theorem, keeping in mind the $\bf \textit{Area of a Trapezoid}=\cfrac{h}{2}(base1+base2)$

jdoe0001 · Answer

well, you do have to assume because shape-wise for the given values, is what fits, and to be a trapezoid, it just have to have 2 parallel sides, the other 2 sides don't have to be slanted or equal

anonymous · Answer

im sorry i cant help because i havent done this type of geometry in a while

anonymous · Answer

I guess that makes sense, thank you so much! :D

anonymous · Answer

Noooooooooooooooo

anonymous · Answer

You cant assume. I remember doing problems like this 
It can be done without assuming that the angles are 90

anonymous · Answer

the only proble is that i forgot

jdoe0001 · Answer

with an isosceles trapezoid is simple since there's a property to use for the diagonals, with non-isosceles there isn't

anonymous · Answer

ya i know it isnt an isoseles

anonymous · Answer

Lol, I think that's the only way we can think of right now xD Thanks though, hopefully it's correct

anonymous · Answer

have you guys talked about adding things extra parts in class

jdoe0001 · Answer

extra parts?

anonymous · Answer

Well the textbook told us to use similar triangles to find the length of the concurrency to each corner

anonymous · Answer

im talking about adding midlines