The builder of a parking garage wants to build a ramp at an angle of 12° that covers a horizontal span of 70 feet. How long will the actual ramp be? Round your solution to four decimal places.

Answer 1

Greetings! Lets solve this shall we ?

So, we must find out how long the ramp is when it is lifted at an angle of 12 degrees. If you draw it out, you should have the 70 feet at the horizontal, which is the base with the unknown side to be the hypotenuse. This will give you

cos12 = adjacent / hypotenuse = 70 / x

cos12 = 70 / x ............Then we cross multiply to obtain

xcos12 = 70.........Then we divide cos12 to both sides to obtain

x = 70 / cos12

x = 71.5638 (in degree mode of the calculator) and

x = 82.9527 (in radian mode of the calculator)

My bet is on x = 82.9527 !

I hope this helped!

Answer 2

Draw and label a diagram

r represents the length of the ramp

cos 12° = 70 / r

Can you solve for r and answer?