Anyone else struggle with verifying trig identities?

Question

anonymous · Answer

Ive been at this for 5 hours now but Im still having lots of issues--and I have a test on Monday. I really hope I don't end up having to drop my class.

alyssa_xo · Answer

Is there a specific problem you need help with?

anonymous · Answer

No Ive been working through them slowly one by one, and once I verify the identity, I review the process and try to apply it to other problems but it just seems to require a certain amount of skill and planning--like taking a strategic approach to the problem. Which is hard for me since math up to this point has always been very straight forward.

alyssa_xo · Answer

In all honesty, I'm not aware of any strategies. I've not done trig in a while but all I know is the few common identities and I just tinker until something comes out correctly. It's hot as hamhanded as I make it sound but it's definitely not the most graceful process

anonymous · Answer

yeah, I think it might just take practice. It's exactly like you said though: tinkering. Thats what I end up doing, almost like a more structured version of the "guess-and-check" method.

alyssa_xo · Answer

what kinds of things do you have to use? I didn't have this in college but in high school I think most of our identities just used the $sin^2(x)+cos^2(x)=1$ and related identites

do you have to do anything with the double angle formulas?

anonymous · Answer

Yeah, we have double angle formulas, half angle formulas, product/sum, sum/difference and the fundamental identities