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Right triangles and trigonometry SAT question

Math · Geometry and Trigonometry · Hard · Answer it here, explanation included.

The perimeter of an equilateral triangle is centimeters. The height of this triangle is centimeters, where is a constant. What is the value of ?

Enter a number or fraction (like 3/17 or 0.176). Press Enter to check.

ExplanationShow

The correct answer is . An equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length and all three angles have a measure of . The height of the triangle, , is the length of the altitude from one vertex. The altitude divides the equilateral triangle into two congruent 30-60-90 right triangles, where the altitude is the side across from the  angle in each 30-60-90 right triangle. Since the altitude has a length of , it follows from the properties of 30-60-90 right triangles that the side across from each angle has a length of and each hypotenuse has a length of . In this case, the hypotenuse of each 30-60-90 right triangle is a side of the equilateral triangle; therefore, each side length of the equilateral triangle is . The perimeter of a triangle is the sum of the lengths of each side. It's given that the perimeter of the equilateral triangle is ; therefore, , or . Dividing both sides of this equation by yields .

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