Geometry: 1,001 Practice Problems For Dummies (+ Free Online Practice)
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When two triangles are similar, this means that their sides are in proportion. The following word problems ask you to use the properties of similar triangles—and a little bit of algebra—to find the solutions.

Similar triangles are different only in size. The corresponding angles still have the same measure.

Practice questions

  1. The lengths of the sides of a triangle are 16, 23, and 31. If the perimeter of a similar triangle is 280, find the length of that triangle's longest side.

  2. In triangle RST, W is a point on

    image0.png

    and Y is a point on

    image1.png

    such that

    image2.png

    If WS = 5, RW = x + 7, YS = x, and TY = x + 3, solve for x.

Answers and explanations

  1. 124

    If two triangles are similar, their sides are in proportion. Suppose you call the original triangle A and the new triangle B. The proportion would be as follows:

    image3.png
  2. 3

    A line that intersects two sides of a triangle and is parallel to the third side of the triangle creates two similar triangles. If two triangles are similar, their sides are in proportion, and the parts of their sides are also in proportion:

    image4.png

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book authors:

Allen Ma and Amber Kuang are math teachers at John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York. Allen, who has taught geometry for 20 years, is the math team coach and a former honors math research coordinator. Amber has taught all levels of mathematics, from algebra to calculus, for the past 14 years.

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