Math

Name: ______________________________________________________________ Date: ________

Directions: Do as directed. Write your full solution legibly.

1. A memorial park’s parabolic arch has a height and a base width of 15 meters and 20 meters,
respectively. Using the x-axis to represent the ground, find an equation that models this shape.
Give the focus and the directrix.

2. A person in a whispering gallery standing at one focus of the ellipse can whisper and be heard by a
person standing at the other focus because all the sound waves that reach the ceiling are reflected to
the other person. If a whispering gallery has a length of 120 feet, and the foci are located 30 feet from
the center, find the height of the ceiling at the center.

3. An arch has the shape of a semi-ellipse. The arch has a height of 12 feet and a span of 40 feet. Find an
equation for the ellipse, and use that to find the distance from the center to a point at which the height is
6 feet. Round to the nearest hundredth.

4. An arch is in the shape of a parabola. It has a span of 100 feet and a maximum height of 20 feet. Find
the equation of the parabola, and determine the height of the arch 40 feet from the center.

5. An object is projected so as to follow a parabolic path given by

,where x is the horizontal distance traveled in feet and y is the height.

Determine the maximum height the object reaches.
 6. A satellite is launched in a circular orbit around Earth at an altitude of 120 miles above the surface. The
diameter of Earth is 7920 miles. Write an equation for the orbit of the satellite if the center of the orbit is
the center of the Earth labeled (0, 0).

7. An elliptical track has a major axis that is 80 yards long and a minor axis that is 72 yards long. Find an
equation for the track if its center is (0, 0) and the major axis is the x-axis.

8. Find an equation that models the path of a satellite if its path is a hyperbola, a = 55,000 km, and c =
81,000 km. Assume that the center of the hyperbola is the origin and the transverse axis is horizontal.

9. The ceiling in a hallway 12 𝑚 wide is in the shape of a semi-ellipse and is 10 𝑚 high at the
center and 6 𝑚 high at the side walls. Find the height of the ceiling 2 𝑚 from either wall.
 Answers:

1.
the focus is at (0, 40/3) and
the directrix is y = 50/3.

2. Approximately 51.96 feet

3.

Distance = 17.32 feet

4.
height is 7.2 feet

5. 2304 feet

6.

7.

8.

9. ℎ ≈ 8.98 𝑚