Posted by Shane on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 4:42pm.
The first step in setting up equations
is to define the unknowns. Then reread the question and interpret the data as equations in terms of the defined unknowns. Finally, solve the mathematical equation(s).
Let x=first anlge, y=second angle
"Two angles are complementary":
x+y=90 ..... (1)
"The sum of the measure of the first angle and 1/4 the second angle is 82.5"
x + y/4 = 82.5 .....(2)
In general, I would be tempted to minimize the number of variables if there is a simple relationship between two variables. You could also do:
From x+y=90, write y=90-x
instead of writing
x+y/4=82.5
write
x+(90-x)/4 = 82.5 .....(3)
Solve for x in (3), one unknown and one equation.
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