Question

A ramp extends from the back of a truck bed to the ground. The back of the truck bed is 4 feet above the ground. The horizontal distance from the spot below the back of the truck bed to the bottom of the ramp is 3 feet. How long is the ramp?

Answer 1

5 feet.

Explanation:

Please find the attachment.

Let x be the length of ramp.

We have been given that a ramp extends from the back of a truck bed to the ground. The back of the truck bed is 4 feet above the ground. The horizontal distance from the spot below the back of the truck bed to the bottom of the ramp is 3 feet.

We can see from our attachment that ramp and the height of truck bed form a right triangle, so the length of ramp will be equal to hypotenuse of right triangle with two legs of 4 feet and 3 feet.

We will use Pythagorean theorem to solve for the length of ramp.

`x^2=4^2+3^2`

`x^2=16+9`

`x^2=25`

Upon taking square root of both sides of our equation we will get,

`x=\pm 5`

Since length of ramp can not be negative, therefore, length of ramp will be 5 feet.