This week in advanced math we learned more of chapter 8. Section 8-4 is all about pythagorean identities. Its difficult until you can learn all of your identities and then working it becomes so much easier.

5 steps:
1) look for any pythagorean identities
2) move everything to sin and cos or tan if possible
3) use algebra to simplify
4) check again for any pythagorean identities
5) algebra

You wont necessarily use all of these steps. They are pretty much guidelines to follow when working these types of problems.

Example:
secxcotx
secx is equal to (1/cosx) and cotx is equal to (cosx/sinx)
the 2 cosx's cancel out and you are left with (1/sinx)
1/sinx is equal to cscx
your final answer is cscx

Doing these types of problems takes a lot of practice and will become easier when you learn all of your identities. All problems you work are different but require the same 5 steps.