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Help your students prepare for their Maths GCSE with this free trigonometry worksheet of 44 questions and answers
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Trigonometry is the relationship between the sides and angles in triangles. There are three trigonometric ratios we need to be aware of at GCSE: sine, cosine and tangent (abbreviated sin, cos, tan). Each trig ratio gives the relationship between an angle and two particular sides of a right angled triangle – for example, sine involves the ratio of the opposite side and the hypotenuse. The mnemonic SOHCAHTOA is used to remember which trig ratio is used for which pair of sides.
Simple trigonometry (SOHCAHTOA) can be used to find the length of a missing side in a right angle triangle. By using the inverse trig operation (notation sin-1, cos-1, tan-1), we can also find the size of a missing angle.
With the exception of a few angles, trigonometric functions often to return non-terminating decimals. It is therefore important that students are confident with rounding their answers to a suitable number of decimal places.Â
There are three more advanced rules using trigonometry at GCSE – these are the sine rule (law of sines), the cosine rule (law of cosines), and the trigonometric area formula for area of a triangle. These rules apply to any triangle, not just right angled triangles. The cosine rule, for example, can be used to find the length of a missing side, when two side lengths and the size of the angle between them is known.Â
While students do not need to know trigonometric identities at GCSE, knowledge of the identity tan(x) is equivalent to sin(x) divided by cos(x) can be useful for remembering some exact trig values.
Looking forward, students can then progress to additional geometry worksheets, for example a 3D Pythagoras worksheet, a graphing sine, cosine and tangent worksheet or a trigonometry worksheet
For more teaching and learning support on Geometry our GCSE maths lessons provide step by step support for all GCSE maths concepts.
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