Question

A ladder is resting against a wall. The ladder and the ground make an angle of 35° and the ladder is 8 ft from the wall. How long is the ladder? Round your answer to the nearest hundredth.

Answer 1

I'm guessing we are to assume the wall is perpendicular to the ground.

Have you considered the Tangent function?

Answer 2

would it be 9.77 ft?

Answer 3

You tell me. How did you get that?

Answer 4

\(\tan(35º) = 0.7002\)

\(9.77/8 = 1.22125\)

Doesn't seem right.

Answer 5

I don't believe I am using tangent, I believe it is cosine.

Answer 6

That would be a bad idea, since you do not know the hypotenuse length.

Answer 7

But you can not use tangent in this problem because the opposite side is the side at question? Can you not do Cos(35=8/L and then do L=8/Cos(35) which is L=8/.819 and that equals L=9.768 which rounds to 9.77?

Answer 8

"The opposite side is the side at question" That is why you MUST use the TANGENT.

\(\tan(35º) = \dfrac{Height}{8\;ft}\)

\(Height = 8\;ft * tan(35º) = 8\;ft * 0.7002 = 5.602\;ft\)

Generally, greater than 45º, the wall distance will be greater than the ground distance. Less than 45º, the wall distance will be less than the ground distance.

Answer 9

Excuse me, I said that wrong, the length of the ladder is the hypotenuse.

Answer 10

It does help to write the correct question.

Why do you doubt? Move on to the next one.

Answer 11

The question was correct.

Answer 12

What, your ladders don't bend at right angles and crawl up next to the wall?

VERY good work arguing with me and being correct.

Answer 13

Thank you! I'm glad I was correct. I apologize for messing up what I was trying to say and not being clear in my reply. Sometimes it is hard to explain this kind of stuff. But anyways thanks!