Aladder needs to reach a second-story window that is 14 feet above the ground and make an angle with the ground of 69°. how far out from the building does the base of the ladder need to be positioned? round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Lets build a right triangle with the information provided in the problem. We know that  the ground and the ladder make an angle of 69°.We also know that the ladder needs to reach a second-story window that is 14 feet, so the opposite side from the angle of our triangle will measure 14 ft. Finally, let  represents the distance between the building and the base of the ladder.

Now that we have our triangle, we will use a trigonometric function to relate its angle with its opposite and adjacent sides. That function is tangent. So lets use it to find :




We can conclude that for the ladder to reach 14 feet in the building, its base must be 5.4 feet away from the base of the building-

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