Question

A roller coaster makes an angle of 65 degrees with the ground. The horizontal distance fro the crest of the hill to the bottom of the hill is about 130 feet, as shown. Find the height h of the roller coaster to the nearest foot.

Answer 1

It would be helpful if you draw the situation in the problem. We will see that a right triangle is made from the system. By using knowledge on trigonometric functions, we can calculate for the height of the roller coaster. We do as follows:

tan (65) = height / 130
height = 278.79 ft

Hope this answers the question.