Question

Anna leaned a ladder against the side of her house. The ladder forms a 79° angle with the ground and rests against the house at a spot that is 18 feet high.The distance along the ground from the bottom of the ladder to the wall is approximately ____ feet. Round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

The diagram below shows a representation of the information:

We can draw a triangle from that as

Where x is the distance from the bottom of the ladder to the wall.

Solving the triangle using the Tan Trigonometric ratio, we have

`\begin{gathered} \tan 79=(18)/(x) \\ 5.144=(18)/(x) \\ x=(18)/(5.144) \\ x=3.5 \end{gathered}`

Thus, the distance along the ground from the bottom of the ladder to the wall is approximately 3.5 feet.