Question 341413
Your answer of 52 happens if the triangle is a right triangle and one of the legs of the right triangle is 20 and the other leg of the right triangle is 48.


Then you use the Pythagorean formula to get:


c^2 = a^2 + b^2, where c is the hypotenuse of the right triangle and a and b are legs of the right triangle.


The formula becomes c^2 = 20^2 + 48^2 = 400 + 2304 = 2704.


c becomes the square root of 2704 which equals 52.


It takes you through elementary algebra, intermediate, and college (advanced) algebra.


To tutor high school math, you need to know algebra, geometry, and trigonometry.


There are many sources.


A good online source for algebra that I have used can be accessed through the following link:


<a href = "http://www.wtamu.edu/academic/anns/mps/math/mathlab/col_algebra/index.htm" target = "_blank">http://www.wtamu.edu/academic/anns/mps/math/mathlab/col_algebra/index.htm</a>


A good refresher for trigonometry can be found at the following link.


<a href = "http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/" target = "_blank">http://www.clarku.edu/~djoyce/trig/</a>


A decent refreshed for geometry can be found at the following link.


<a href = "http://regentsprep.org/Regents/math/geometry/math-GEOMETRY.htm" target = "_blank">http://regentsprep.org/Regents/math/geometry/math-GEOMETRY.htm</a>


For textbooks, I would recommend going to Amazon.com and looking for textbooks.


They have ratings that can help guide you to the right source.


There are many other tutorials online.


Just do a search on "geometry tutorial" or "trigonometry tutorial" or "algebra tutorial" and you will come up with a bunch.


Check them out and pick the ones that make the most sense to you.


You can also a search on "... lessons", or just "geometry" or "trigonometry" or "algebra".


You can experiment with the terms to narrow down your search results.


After a while you will get better at it, assuming you haven't done it before.


I believe algebra.com also has lessons, although I haven't used them very much.


To see the lessons that algebra.com has, use the following link.


<a href = "http://www.algebra.com/tutors/all-lessons.mpl" target = "_blank">http://www.algebra.com/tutors/all-lessons.mpl</a>


You might even see some of my lessons in there.   


Look for Santa.