Question

A 14-foot ladder is leaning against the side of a house.The angle the ladder makes with the ground is 50 degrees. How far is the base of the ladder from the house to the nearest tenth of a foot

Answer 1

9 ft

Explanation:

You can use cosine to solve this, which is adjacent over hypotenuse. The ladder forms a triangle with the house, and the side you need to solve for is adjacent to the angle. You can set up the equation:

cos(50)=x/14

Then you multiply 14 by cos(50) and get almost 9 ft (rounding to the nearest tenth of a foot).