Ron is designing a new slide for the amusement park in town.The slide makes an angle of 39 degrees with the ground.The top of the slide is to be 9 feet off the ground.

Question

What should be the length of the slide he needs to make to the nearest foot?

A.19 feet

B.25 feet

C.28 feet

D.14 feet

Answer 1

9 |\

| \

| \

| \

| \

| 39 \

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Drawing a picture, the ladder to the top of the slide (9 feet tall) to the ground forms a right angle so we can use the trigonometric properties of right triangles to solve this problem. The slide makes a 39 degree angle with the ground as shown in the figure. We need to find the length of the slide, which is the hypotenuse of the right triangle.

By definition the sin(39) = opposite/hypotenuse --> sin (39) = 9/hypotenuse --> hypotenuse = 9/sin 39 = 14.3, which rounded to the nearest foot is 14 feet (answer D).