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Subject: angles of depression and elevation
Name: Zee
Who are you: Student

A 55 ft. flagpole casts a 25 ft. shadow. Calculate the angle of elevation to the sun to the nearest degree.

Hello Zee.

Whenever I get a problem like this, I like to draw a quick sketch:

flagpole

You can see from the sketch that you have a right triangle with the lengths of the two legs known. You want angle A in the sketch, so you need to use the arctan function to find it.

Hope this helps,
Sue

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