MEDAL and fan! valerie drives 500 meters up a hill that makes an angle of 15 degrees with the horizontal. To the nearest tenth of a meter, what horizontal distance has she covered?

Question

johnweldon1993 · Answer

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so we have an angle...the hypotenuse...and we want the side adjacent to the angle...trig function?

anonymous · Answer

hi im so sorry i was off so long

a1234 · Answer

Extending the previous answer, which trig function do we want to use? Sine, cosine, or tangent?

anonymous · Answer

well cos seems like the right one because of what john said but ugh i get confused with the opposite and adjacent sometimes so i want to say sin

anonymous · Answer

like i want to say that x is opposite

a1234 · Answer

Well, sine = opposite/hypotenuse, and cos = adjacent/hypotenuse.
x would be adjacent here, so we use cos.

a1234 · Answer

cos15 = x/500

anonymous · Answer

sorry computer slow hold on

anonymous · Answer

483

a1234 · Answer

Yep

anonymous · Answer

sorry i know its very simple but can you tell me how to always be 100% sure which is adjacent and which is opposite

anonymous · Answer

most of the time the opposite is the second largest and the adjacent is smallest so I'm used to seeing it that way

a1234 · Answer

I don't have the exact terms to explain, but I'll try...|dw:1431567265520:dw|

It's easy to find the hypotenuse, so maybe you can think of adjacent as the other side that the angle "touches."|dw:1431567350434:dw|