TRIGONOMETRY

Trigonometric Functions
1. A surveyor can measure the width of a river by setting up a transit at a point C on one
side of the river and taking a sighting of a point A on the other side. After turning
through an angle of 90° at C, the surveyor walks a distance of 200 meters to point B.
Using the transit at B, the angle is measured and found to be 20°. What is the width of
the river rounded to the nearest meter?
2. Adorning the top of the Board of Trade building in Chicago is a statue of Ceres, the
Roman goddess of wheat. From street level, two observations are taken 400 feet from
the center of the building. The angle of elevation to the base of the statue is found to be
55.1° and the angle of elevation to the top of the statue is 56.5°. What is the height of
the statue?
3. A Boeing 777 aircraft takes off from O’Hare Airport on runway 2 LEFT, which has a
bearing of N20°E. After flying for 1 mile, the pilot of the aircraft requests permission
to turn 90° and head toward the northwest. The request is granted. After the plane goes
2 miles in this direction, what bearing should the control tower use to locate the aircraft?
4. A tree growing on hillside casts 10.2 meters shadow straight downhill. Find the vertical
height of the tree if, relative to the horizontal, the hill slopes 15° and the angle of
elevation of the sun is 62°.
5. From a building across, the angle of depression of the base of the front edifice is 23.5°
and the angle of elevation to the top is 52.78°. The height of observation is 14 m. What
is the height of edifice?
Triangles in General
 6. Solve the interior angles of the triangle with and a = 3 ft, b = 4 ft, c = 6 ft.
7. A fire at F is spotted from two fire lookout stations, A and B, which are located 10.3 mi
apart. If station B reports the fire at angle ABF = 52.6°, and station A reports the fire at
angle BAF = 25.3°, how far is the fire from station A?
8. Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo form a triangle in Ohio with Columbus 120 mi
southeast of Toledo, and Cleveland 112 mi northeast of Columbus. If the angle at Toledo
is 59.7°, how far is it from Toledo to Cleveland?
9. A ship sails 15.0 mi on a course S40°10’W and then 21.0 mi on a course N28°20’W.
Find the distance and direction of the last position from the first.
10. Coast Guard Station Zulu is located 120 miles due west of Station X-ray. A ship at sea
sends an SOS call that is received by each station. The call to Station Zulu indicates that
the bearing of the ship from Zulu is N 40° E (40° east of north). The call to Station X-
ray indicates that the bearing of the ship from X-ray is N 30° W (30° west of north).
How far is each station from the ship?

ANALYTIC GEOMETRY
Distance Formula
1. Two surveyors need to find the distance across a lake. They place a reference pole at
point A in the diagram. Point B is 3 meters east and 1 meter north of the reference
point A. Point C is 19 meters east and 13 meters north of point A. Find the distance
across the lake, from B to C.
Equation of Lines
2. Determine the equation of the line passing through the points (-5, 3) and (4, 2).
Parallel and Perpendicular Lines
3. Find the equation of the line perpendicular to x–4y=3 and passing through the point
(2, -5)
Distance of a Point to a Line
4. Determine the distance from the point (5, -3) to the line 2x – 4y + 10 = 0
Angles between Two Lines
5. Determine the acute angle between the lines 4x – 3y +9 = 0 and 3x – 8y + 1 = 0.
Circles
6. Determine the center of the circle with equation x2 + y2 – 4x + 6y – 23=0.
Parabola
7. Where is the vertex of the parabola x2 – 4y + 8 = 0?
 8. An arch 18 m high has the form of parabola with a vertical axis. The length of a
horizontal beam placed across the arch 8 m from the top is 64m. Find the width of the
arch at the bottom.
9. A mirror for a reflecting telescope has the shape of a (finite) paraboloid of diameter 8
inches and depth 1 inch. How far from the center of the mirror will the incoming light
collect?
Ellipse
10. The arch of a bridge is on the shape of a semi-ellipse having a horizontal span of 90 m
and a height of 30 m at its center. How high is the arch 25 m to the right or left of the
center?
11. Assume that the length of the major axis of Earth’s orbit is 186,000,000 miles and that
the eccentricity is 0.017. Approximate, to the nearest 1000 miles, the maximum and
minimum distances between Earth and the sun.
Hyperbola
12. A cooling tower is a hyperbolic structure. Suppose its base diameter is 100 meters and
its smallest diameter of 48 meters occurs 84 meters from the base. If the tower is 120
meters high, approximate its diameter at the top.

Area by Coordinates
13. Find the area of a polygon whose vertices are (3, 5), (-1, -7), (-2, 4) and (5, -6).