True bearings question

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Leo108

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Jun 17, 2026
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I'm not sure how to find the answer to this question:

Emily is on a trek through the jungle. She travels 21 kilometres to a rest spot on a bearing of 130°T. She then travels 15 kilometres to the exit of the jungle on bearing of 50°T. Find the bearing of the exit of the jungle to where Emily began her trek. Answer to the nearest whole number.

ANSWER: 166°T

This is the diagram I did (and confirmed with AI)

Just by looking at the diagram I can see the true bearing would have to be bigger than 180°. Am I reading something wrong?

Thank you for any suggestions.
 

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Leo108 said:
I'm not sure how to find the answer to this question:

Emily is on a trek through the jungle. She travels 21 kilometres to a rest spot on a bearing of 130°T. She then travels 15 kilometres to the exit of the jungle on bearing of 50°T. Find the bearing of the exit of the jungle to where Emily began her trek. Answer to the nearest whole number.

ANSWER: 166°T

This is the diagram I did (and confirmed with AI)

Just by looking at the diagram I can see the true bearing would have to be bigger than 180°. Am I reading something wrong?

Thank you for any suggestions.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum, @Leo108,

I'm afraid your diagram is inaccurate (it shows a 15 km journey to be longer than a 21 km one, lol). Please don't rely on AI for anything; it (usually) tells you itself that there may be mistakes in its responses.

However, a rough sketch of my own doesn't offer any help in resolving your query as I then get the bearings to be (approximately) 275°T from the Exit to the Start and 095°T from the Start to the Exit.

IMG_20260619_225827.jpg​

(I state both directions because the wording of the question in its final sentence I found to be a little bit ambiguous; are you sure you have replicated the question's wording completely accurately? Was it originally in English?)

I have no idea how a bearing of 166°T comes into play at all here, sorry. 🤷‍♂️

Maybe someone else can shed some light on it.

Hope that helps. 😊
 
Leo108 said:
Emily is on a trek through the jungle. She travels 21 kilometres to a rest spot on a bearing of 130°T. She then travels 15 kilometres to the exit of the jungle on bearing of 50°T. Find the bearing of the exit of the jungle to where Emily began her trek. Answer to the nearest whole number.
Click to expand...
Is that supposed to be the bearing FROM the exit? That's the only way it makes sense.

In any case, your diagram isn't quite accurate, but clearly you are right that the starting point is to the west of the ending point, so that bearing must be greater than 180.

Here is a more accurate drawing:

1781910044118.png​

I would want to check that you copied the problem correctly. Can you show an image of the original? (Even if it's not in English.)
 
Dr.Peterson said:
Is that supposed to be the bearing FROM the exit? That's the only way it makes sense.

In any case, your diagram isn't quite accurate, but clearly you are right that the starting point is to the west of the ending point, so that bearing must be greater than 180.

Here is a more accurate drawing:


I would want to check that you copied the problem correctly. Can you show an image of the original? (Even if it's not in English.)
Click to expand...
Please read (all of) this post. 🤣🤣🤣
 
Dr.Peterson said:
Yes, I saw it as I was about to post, and decided it wasn't necessary to not post, since I did say a couple different things. Is there something wrong with that?
Click to expand...
No, of course not (though I'm at a loss to see what you said that was different from what I had already pointed out).

Your diagram is certainly more accurate than mine though I did clearly state that mine was only a rough sketch (that I had made to convince myself that correcting the OP's mistake wouldn't affect the outcome significantly).

I understand only too well the frustration of going to the bother of preparing stuff (like diagrams, Latex formulae, etc.) only to come back to post it/them and find someone else has already got in before you with pretty much the same thing.

I was just taking a gentle dig at you. 😊 (Don't get the chance very often! 😉🙂)
 
nasi112 said:
Respect him. He is the doctor not you.

@Ted
I ask Ted to write down new rules. A punishment to any member who do not respect elite members. It will be a short ban for few weeks or one month.

This is not the first time for the high lander, she did not respect the elite member @lookagain before and now the doctor.
Click to expand...
Elite members are just long-time active members; and what we call ourselves is not necessarily what we really are. (Do you know that I'm a doctor and he is not?) And respect looks different in different cultures; this is just the way he is.
 
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