To the nearest tenth of a meter, what horizontal distance has he covered

Question

Victor drives 300 meters up a hill that makes an angle of 13 degrees with the horizontal. To the nearest tenth of a meter, what horizontal distance has he covered?

 

A) 307.9 meters

B) 292. 3 meters

C) 69. 3 meters

D) 67.5 meters

 

To be honest I dont know the answer or how to solve this so if you could give me a step by step on how to solve this that would be awesome. Thank you!

Answer 1

If you make a fairly accurate sketch of this situation, you will have a right triangle with hypotenuse 300 m, and an acute angle of 13 degrees whose other side is a horizontal leg of the right triangle.  The answer cannot be A because the leg cannot exceed the hypotenuse. The other leg (vertical) will be smallish because it's opposite the small angle, 13^o.

This rules out answers C & D. By default, choose B, with no calculations needed whatsover.

 

If you insist upon calculating the answer, use cos 13^o = x/300 and solve for x.