Question

The direct distance from a starting point to a finish line is 15 miles. Unfortunately, you can't take the direct route. If you travel 12 miles east, how many miles north must you travel to reach the finish line?

10
19
9

mod note: Please do not give away the answer directly. Low-effort and/or plagiarized answers will be removed.

Answer 1

I don't really like the way this question is worded, but anyway, let's make some simplifying assumptions: since the runner is travelling north and east, it is reasonable to conclude that the finish line lies in a northeast direction to the starting point. let's also assume that the finish line, compared to the size of the whole course, is small enough to be modeled as a point.

we can model the situation as a pythagorean right triangle, with 12 as one of the legs and 15 as the hypotenuse. the missing leg is the northern distance.

use the pythagorean theorem a^2 + b^2 = c^2 to solve for the missing leg.