Help! My teacher gave me a grade that doesn't seem right!?

Question

Here is the exact question from the test:

A on a junior baseball league diamond, the bases are 60 ft. apart. Find the exact distance from second base to home plate.

You cant solve this question with out knowing that the angles the bases make are 90 degrees. I didn't know this while taking the test, and my teacher wont take the time to look over the question and see if it was kind of unfair. It was a test on triginometry, not a test on "General knowledge of Baseball".

please give my your opinions!

thx,
Jake


I did all of my reasearch on diamonds. go to wikipedia and check out their deffinition for diamond/rhombus

Answer 1

Yes...You are right in that the test requires you to know that a baseball diamond is in fact a square.

But did you write anything on the test that at least shows that you could solve it but for that piece of information...

e.g. Let theta be the angle of second base.

So the diagonal = 2 * 60 * cos(theta/2).

Then you should get most if not all the credit...If you just whined about not knowing the angles...Then I would've given you a 0 on that question.

Answer 2

I might've been tempted to say the distance was 120 ft. because you can't get directly from 2nd to home :-)

But you are correct, you need to know the ANGLES to solve, and it does seem unfair if the test did not supply that information. I wouldn't have guessed that all the angles were right angles, as that makes it a baseball square, not a diamond! I think the test should've supplied the angles for you. Not sure this will persuade your teacher though, but if you approach him/her in a calm manner and explain it rationally, maybe he/she will reconsider. If not, at the very least maybe you can ask that future tests include all the necessary information to solve the problem, rather than assuming that the student would be able to supply the missing information himself.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Okay, here what Wikipedia says:

A subtlety about the bases is that home plate and the first and third base bags are entirely within the ninety-foot square. They are positioned this way to help the umpires, as any ball hitting those bases must necessarily be in fair territory. Home plate has its peculiar shape in order to help the plate umpire judge whether a pitch is over the plate or not, i.e. whether it might be in the strike zone. The second base bag, which is fully within fair territory, is placed so that its center coincides exactly with the corner or "point" of the ninety-foot infield square. Thus, although the "points" of the bases are 90 feet apart, the physical distance between each successive pair of base markers is closer to 88 feet.

So using your requirement for Wikipedia's definition, there must be a 90 degree angle to the bases! Sorry, teacher's decision stands.

Answer 4

If the bases are all 60 feet apart then they have to be in a perfect square and the angles would have to be 90 degrees. You had all the information you needed. Thank the teacher for showing you how to think deeper into each question and improve your test-taking skills.

Answer 5

I think it is valid. You know that it is a diamond with all sides equaling 60. how do you know a square has four right angles? all sides are equivalent. It didn't require a general knowledge of baseball, but of shapes. I always find that drawing out the shape helps on homework and tests.

Answer 6

The distances between bases shall be 60 feet apart, and the distance from home plate to second base shall be 84 feet, 10 inches. Distances to the bases are measured from the point at the rear of home plate to the front edge of the base (or in the case of second base, to the point of the base pointing toward the infield). The distance to the pitcher’s mound shall be 46 feet.i think he wanted you to explain your self in how u had the answer not just answer it and that it.teachers love student to solve things and not the solution of knowing is how you know the answer

Answer 7

Hey, If you can defend your reason for why you think the question was unfair I say go for it. Teachers are usually annoyed by people who think they are right just because they are so great. If you can defend why you think you are right then the teacher is more likely to listen. Sorry I don't know whether you need the angles or not, I'm not a math type of person. So I can't say.

Answer 8

You didn't know that a baseball diamond is at 90 degree angles?
Most people wouldn't need that put on the test because any american would know that. He should have put it anyway.

Answer 9

You could solve it by using the Law of Sines, wherein knowing the length of the three sides is enough.

Answer 10

should be 120 feet