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What is it?
I am a big fan of “pile-up” activities. I don’t know of any other type of resource that crams so many questions and challenges into such a confined space. Images are piled on top of each other, and students must work their way from the bottom to the top, filling out crucial information as and when they calculate it. There are a number of lovely pile-ups on TES, including this one on Angles and this on Pythaogras. This resource uses the pile-up format to take trigonometry to the limit, for to succeed here students will need to identify and carry out calculations involving Pythagoras, SOHCAHTOA, and the Sine and Cosine Rules.

How can it be used?
This trigonometry pile-up is ideal to be used at the end of a teaching unit on Further Trigonometry, or as a revision exercise to assess students knowledge of Pythagoras, SOHCAHTOA, and the Sine and Cosine Rules. Crucially, not only does it assess how well students can use the rules, but also how well they can select which rule is needed in a given situation, which is a key skill that many students in my experience fall down on. Students can be challenged to work through it on their own, or with a partner, and I am pleased to say that the answers are available. Once complete, we always have the classic option of asking students to create their own version. This is likely to be a significant challenge, but ultimately a worthwhile one.

Thanks so much for sharing
Craig Barton

Download: Trig Pile-up
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