Question

A quarterback is standing in the middle of the field 60 yards from his goal line. He passes the ball to a player 12 yards to his left on the 55 yard line. How long was the pass?

Answer 1

So for this you would have to use the pythagorean theorem which is α²+b²=c². The 12 yards would be a and the distance between the 60 yard line and 50 yard line which is 5 would be b and you would be trying to find out what c is. 

a²+b²=c²
12²+5²=c²
144+25=c²
169=c²
now you want to get c alone and in order to do that we would square root it and i'm sure you have learned that what you do on one side you have to do to the other so we would also square root 169
√169=√c²

13=c

the pass was 13 yards 

hope i helped :)