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2. Polygons
One of Mr Bartons Top 10 Maths Jokes
What did the pirate (who was also a very keen mathematician) say when his parrot flew
away?... Poly-gon! you cant beat a maths joke, hey?... anyway
Two types of Polygons that you must be especially clued up about are quadrilaterals and triangles
1. Triangles
There are 4 types of triangles you need to be on the look-out for and you must know the
properties of (what is special about) each of them
Equilateral
Isosceles
Right Angled
One angle is 90
All sides may be different lengths
All angles may be different
May have 0 or 1 line of symmetry
Scalene
2. Quadrilaterals
A Quadrilateral is any four-sided shape. There are lots of quadrilaterals flying around, and it
is important that you know the properties of each so here they are!
Square
Parallelogram
Rectangle
each)
Rhombus
Notice: Each of the four shapes above are very similar in fact, they are all just special
types of parallelograms! See how they each have two pairs of parallel sides and then it just
certain other properties that make them different shapes!
Trapezium
Kite
3. Other Polygons
As soon as you get above 4 sides, the names of the polygons start to get a bit weird. Here
are some of the main ones you should learn.
Notice: Each of the shapes below are regular polygons as all the sides and angles are the
same but any 8 sided shape is still an octagon, it may just be an irregular one!
5 sides
6 sides
Pentagon
Hexagon
7 sides
Heptagon / Heptagon
9 sides
10 sides
12 sides
Nonagon
Decagon
Dodecagon
8 sides
Octagon
20 sides
Icosagon
180
Why?
Well, its all to do with triangles
We know that the sum of the interior angles of any triangle is
1800, right?
Well we can split any polygon up into triangles, like this
And there will always be 2 fewer triangles than there are sides!
1
4
6 sides
4 triangles
exterior
angle
3600
Why?
Well, if you keep moving around the polygon, extending the sides and measuring each
exterior angle, by the time you get back to where you started you have made a circle!
Which, as we all know, contains 3600
Note: If you know the sizes of the exterior angles of a regular polygon, then you can also
work out the sizes of the interiors by remembering that angles on a straight line add up to
1800
1800
Number of
Sides
Total Sum of
Interior
Angles
Size of each
Interior Angle
if Regular
Total Sum of
Exterior
Angles
Size of each
Exterior Angle
if Regular
Triangle
180
60
360
120
Quadrilateral
360
90
360
90
Pentagon
540
108
360
72
Hexagon
720
120
360
60
Heptagon
900
128.6 (1dp)
360
51.4 (1dp)
Octagon
1080
135
360
45