Problem solving

Question

Finding the area of a triangle with the base being 17 and the side length being 20. It also has an angle of 50 degrees. The triangle is at an 80 degree angle. I used the area formula and got 130.227 and rounded it as it said. However, it said I was wrong.

Answer 1

There is a formula A=1/2 ab*sin c which will find the area of a triangle. the a and b in the formula are the sides that make up angle c. In your description of the problem, I can't tell which angle is made up by your 2 given sides. you used 50 as the included angle to get your answer which is the same answer I got. Maybe the angle between the 2 sides is the 80?

 

That wouldn't make any sense, but maybe there is a mistake in the problem. I say that because the third angle of the triangle is also 50 (sum of angles = 180) which makes this an isosceles triangle. The sides that make up the 80 are both opposite the 50s so they should be congruent.