Accidental photo of the author of this masterpiece:
You feel your pulse quicken and muscles grow taut as you slowly bring your head down to stare at the slip of paper you’ve just been handed. This type isn’t like any you’ve taken before, and you freeze at the sight of strange lines of all lengths intercepting one another. Your head starts spinning; you’ve never done anything like this before! What kind of test was this, anyway? You glance at the top, and it says in bold lettering: Pre-algebra and geometry: Test 1.
“Okay, okay,” you mutter to yourself, “so I’m in the right class. But since when has math had all of these stupid triangles in it? I can do the first ones with exponents and foiling…”
Tackling the first half of the test was cake. “Well,” you think, “at least I’m going to get half of the credit on this test…” You continue on to the bottom, and you read the directions:
All of the following problems have right triangles with the lengths of two sides given. Find x, the length of the third side, using the lengths provided in each problem.
“Come on, come on… How am I supposed to find out the lengths of the sides of the triangle! This doesn’t make any sense! I can’t just make these up! I shouldn’t have slept in class the last few days!” But then, in a flash of brilliance culminating with the greatest ‘Ah ha!’ moment of your life; you remember something odd you heard in class two days ago: a squared plus b squared equals c squared. It all makes sense now! It’s plug-and-chug, and you’re good to go!
