sat suite question viewer

Geometry and Trigonometry / Right triangles and trigonometry Difficulty: Medium

One leg of a right triangle has a length of $43.2$ millimeters. The hypotenuse of the triangle has a length of $196.8$ millimeters. What is the length of the other leg of the triangle, in millimeters?

Back question 42 of 54 Next

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Explanation

Choice C is correct. The Pythagorean theorem states that for a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two legs is equal to the square of the length of the hypotenuse. It's given that one leg of a right triangle has a length of $43.2$ millimeters. It's also given that the hypotenuse of the triangle has a length of $196.8$ millimeters. Let $b$ represent the length of the other leg of the triangle, in millimeters. Therefore, by the Pythagorean theorem, ${43.2}^{2} + b^{2} = {196.8}^{2}$ , or $1,866.24 + b^{2} = 38,730.24$ . Subtracting $1,866.24$ from both sides of this equation yields $b squared equals 36,864$ . Taking the positive square root of both sides of this equation yields $b equals 192$ . Therefore, the length of the other leg of the triangle, in millimeters, is $192$ .

Choice A is incorrect and may result from conceptual or calculation errors.

Choice B is incorrect and may result from conceptual or calculation errors.

Choice D is incorrect and may result from conceptual or calculation errors.