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Question in Glasgow Numbas Question Pool
Calculate the distance between two points along the surface of a sphere using the cosine rule of spherical trigonometry. Context is two places on the surface of the Earth, using latitude and longitude.
The question is randomised so that the numerical values for Latitude for A and B will be positive and different (10-25 and 40-70 degrees). As will the values for Longitude (5-25 and 50-75). The question statement specifies both points are North in latitude, but one East and one West longitude, This means that students need to deal with angles across the prime meridian, but not the equator.
Students first calculate the side of the spherical triangle in degrees, then in part b they convert the degrees to kilometers. Part a will be marked as correct if in the range true answer +-1degree, as long as the answer is given to 4 decimal places. This allows for students to make the mistake of rounding too much during the calculation steps.