Question

PLEASE HELP!!! Anita hikes 7 miles due east and then 3 miles due north. Rounded to the nearest mile, what is the shortest distance from the starting point to the ending point?

A. 4 B. 6 C. 8 D. 10 I think it's B. am i right?

Answer 1

The answer you are looking for is C. 8.

To find this you could Pythagorean Theorem. The base or bottom of the triangle would be 7, and the "leg" of the triangle would be 3. In this instance, we will call 3 "a" and 7 "b". We use these two numbers to find the missing value, which is "c" or the hypotenuse.

The formula for Pythagorean Theorem is "a^2 + b^2 = c^2". Then we follow these steps.

1. Fill in the known values. 3^2 + 7^2 = c^2
2. Simplify the squared numbers. 9 + 49 = c^2
3. Add the numbers together. 58 = c^2
4. Square root both sides. √58 = c.
5. Round up to the nearest whole mile. 7.615 = c; c = 8.

Here's a picture to show how I did this. I hope this helps!