If you’re studying for your maths GCSE, there are certain values of sine, cosine and tangent that you need to know off by heart. Luckily, in two of the three mathematics exams, you will be allowed to use a calculator, but in the non-calculator exam you will need to know the following common values:
You’ll notice there’s one missing – it’s because there is no trigonometric ratio for tan(90). Try typing it into your calculator and see what happens!
Here I will show you a neat little trick to help you remember these common values off by heart.
Step 1:
Construct this table – with sin and cos as the row headings and the angles as the column headings. The values are going to go on the inside of the table.
Step 2:
On the inside of the table, put the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 like so…
Step 3:
Square root each of the numbers.
Step 4:
Now divide by 2.
Step 5:
Simplify where possible.
So that leaves us with our values for sin and cos.
Now you’re probably wondering about tan.
Tan(x) = Sin(x) ÷ Cos(x), so tan values can be calculated by simply dividing sin by cos.
*if you know your surds you’ll notice I have rationalised the denominator here because this is what your calculator will automatically do when you type in tan(30).
Also note that if we tried to use this to calculate Tan(90), we would be doing 1 divided by 0. We cannot divide by zero, hence there is no value of Tan(90).
So, the final values you need to know are shown in the table below.
So there it is – a memorable step-by-step guide for remembering the exact values of sin, cos and tan that you need to know for your maths GCSE.
I hope you found that useful. To practice using exact sin, cos and tan values in a range of different GCSE-style questions, try our worksheet.
