This week we completed the Trigonometry unit. At first I was really nervous going into the unit because all my friends found it very difficult, but I found it very easy. The part that helps me with this unit the most is SOH CAH TOA and knowing what side is the opposite, what side is the hypotenuse, and what side is the adjacent.

For SOH CAH TOA, you look at the right triangle that is given and identify what sides and angles you have and what one you have to solve for. Then for example if you need to find the adjacent side on a triangle and you have the hypotenuse, you would use cosine because the abbreviated word with adjacent and hypotenuse is cosine then it would be the adjacent divided by the hypotenuse because the order is A then H. If you were looking for an angle and you had say the opposite and adjacent sides you would use tangent because it is the only one of the abbreviations that has both opposite and adjacent, and the equation would be opposite divided by adjacent because that is the order it appears in TOA.

It is very important to know the side names of a triangle because you can’t use SOH CAH TOA if you don’t. The side that is opposite to the angle that you are looking for or that you have is always the opposite angle, the longest slanted angle on the triangle  that is opposite of the right angle on the triangle is always the hypotenuse. The side that doesn’t have any angle or anything facing it is always the adjacent angle.