Question

A tree is splintered by lighting 2 m up its trunk, so that the top part of the tree touches the ground. How tall was the tree before it was splintered, to the nearest tenth of a metre?

Answer 1

Hi and welcome to QuestionCove!

This sounds like a question involving the properties of right triangles. Do you know the angle that the splintered tree makes with the ground? Or maybe the distance between the base of the tree and where the tip touches the ground?
We can use this information to find the hypotenuse of the right triangle, then add that to 2 meters to find the original height of the tree before it was split.

You can also post a screenshot of the question, if you find that's an easier way to convey the information :)

Answer 2

As you can see, adding the length of "h" to the remaining height of 2 meters will give us the original height of the tree.

Well, h would be equal to:
2/(sin(a)) or
w/(cos(a)) or
sqrt(2^2 + w^2)...

There could be many ways of finding the length of "h" depending on the information you are given by the question, but that's how you might go about solving the problem