Question

An isosceles trapezoid has bases of length 5" and 11" and a height of 4".

Find the length of a leg of the trapezoid.

Answer 1

Okay, so set it up with a drawing: If you divide the trapezoid into 2 triangles and a rectangle, what you want is the hypotenuse of one of the triangles. The difference in the bases is 11"-5"=6", so each triangle has a base of 6"/2 [since there are 2 triangles that the difference is equally distributed to] = 3". Now we need the height; that's simple, since it's also the height of the trapezoid! So we have the following triangle(s):

Solve for x using the Pythagorean theorem, and bam! You've got your leg length! Hope this helps!