Question

A 15-foot ladder leans against a house. The bottom of the ladder is 7 feet from the house. To the nearest degree, what angle does the ladder make with the ground? Enter your answer in the box

Answer 1

The ladder is forming a right triangle with the house. In this right triangle the hypotenuse is the measure of the ladder, and the distance between the house and he ladder is one of the sides of the triangle. To find the angle, $\alpha$, that the ladder is making with the ground, we are going to use a trig function that relates the adjacent side of our angle with the hypotenuse. That trig function is Cosine. 
$Cos \alpha = \frac{adjacent.side}{hypotenuse}$
$Cos \alpha = \frac{7}{15}$
$\alpha =arcCos( \frac{7}{15} )$
$\alpha =62.2$

We can conclude that the ladder make with the ground a 62° angle.