Question

I am greatly confused on sine, cosine, and tan and when to use them. I am also even more confused on when and how to figure out their reciprocals. I need help. @vocaloid

Answer 1

any example problems?

for general triangle problems, look at the angle(s) and side(s) you're given, think about what you have vs. what you need, and pick the appropriate trig function

so if you have an angle, its opposite side, and you want the hypotenuse, you'd use sin(theta) = opposite/hypotenuse and solve for the hypotenuse.

Answer 2

What is the length of segment AC? Round your answer to the nearest hundredth.triangles ABC and ABD in which the triangles share segment AB and angle B is a right angle, the measure of angle CAB is 34 degrees, the measure of angle BDA is 31 degrees, and the measure of segment AB is 3 units

2.49 units
3.62 units
4.48 units
5.36 units



Here is an example. @vocaloid

Answer 3

in this case, they want the length of CA (the hypotenuse of the smaller triangle CAB). they give you the angle CAB (34 degrees) and the adjacent side (AB, 3 units) so you'd use the ratio that has the angle, the adjacent side, and the hypotenuse.

cos(theta) = adjacent/hypotenuse

and plug in the appropriate quantities to solve for the hypotenuse.

the general idea is to create an equation that only has one unknown left you can solve for.

Answer 4

@vocaloid Sounds good! I will try to apply that!