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Similar triangles and congruent triangles

O Level Maths 4024 · Chapter 20, Similarity and congruence · 6-minute lecture

The teaching part (1 min) is free to watch. A free account opens the whole lecture: 8 practice questions, 1 real past-paper question with the answer explained, the mistakes that lose marks, the full-marks tip, a one-card summary and a quick quiz.

What this lecture covers

  1. Shrink it, same shape
  2. Similar shapes
  3. Finding a missing side
Read the transcript of the teaching part

Last time

Before we start: last time, in Areas and volumes of similar shapes, you learned these points. Here they are again on one card. Keep them in mind, because today builds on them.

Shrink it, same shape

Put a photo on a photocopier and enlarge it. The picture is bigger, but every angle is the same and every length is scaled by the same amount. Those two shapes are similar. If a second photo is an exact copy, same size and same shape, the shapes are congruent. Two ideas, one big difference.

Similar shapes

Two shapes are similar if all their angles are equal and all their sides are in the same ratio. The ratio is the scale factor. Triangle one has sides three, four, five. Triangle two has sides six, eight, ten. Each side doubled: the scale factor from the small to the large is two.

Finding a missing side

Triangles ABC and DEF are similar. A B is six and D E is nine. B C is eight. Find E F. The scale factor from the first to the second is nine over six, which is one point five. E F corresponds to B C, so E F is eight times one point five: twelve.

Chapter 20: Similarity and congruence

Also for O Level Maths 4024

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The O Level Maths 4024 topical past-paper book.