Many students seem to find trigonometry as being one of the tougher subjects to study at school and at college.

Also known as “trig”, this is a math discipline that is taught in secondary schools as a course on its own or sometimes as part of a pre-calculus course.

Trigonometry is a branch of math that involves triangles  specifically, the relationship between the sides of a triangle and the angle between them. Terms such as “sine, cosine and tangent” are key in trigonometry.

As with many subjects in math, the more practice a student has of working through and solving particular types of trigonometric problems, the easier he will find it.  With math, practice really can make you better at a subject.

For many students, algebra and geometry will often precede the study of trigonometry. This is because a student needs to be familiar with these two topics first, since they lay down the foundation on which trigonometry is based.  Students will find that more often than not, they will be trying to work out the lengths of the sides or the angles of a triangle based on certain factors.  The sine, cosine and tangent functions, known as sin x, cos x and tan x can be worked out by using a calculator. Here again, using a calculator to work out the sin, cos and tan values is not as easy as using a calculator to work out addition and subtraction.

Students find that they need to upgrade to a more scientific calculator once they start doing calculus and trigonometry problems at school as the basic mathematical operators will no longer suffice.

Given all of the above, it is no surprise that many students find trigonometry difficult to begin with. There are so many new terms, new unknowns, new keys on the calculator to deal with.  However, with practice and persistence and a good basic understanding of the fundamental principles of trigonometry, students can work through their initial trigonometry problems and find this to be a subject that they can master in the end.