Question

A car drives 12 miles north, turns, and then drives 8 miles east. How far is the car from its starting point?

Draw a right triangle to represent this situation. Label the lengths of the known sides. Label the length of the unknown side x.

Answer 1

Draw a straight line. Label that 8. Perpendicular to that at one of the endpoints, draw a slightly smaller line. Label that 6. Draw another line from the end of 6 to the end of 8. This is x. To find how far the car went, we use the Pythagorean Theorem. a²+b²=c² so (8*8) + (6*6) = ? (64+36)=100 The square root of 100 is 10. The car is 10 miles away for the starting point.