Trig. Question: sin,cos,tan...?

A 20 foot ladder leans against a house.If the foot of the ladder is 8 feet from the house,find,to the nearest degree,the measure of the angle that the foot of the ladder makes with the ground.

I did:
Cos x/1=8/20
But I have to find the degree of x which I can do on my scientific calculator,can anyone help me out?

yes your work is correct, however you notation is not completely correct.
it should be cos(theta)= 8/20
then you can say arccos(8/20)= theta
arccos means inverse cosine. it can also be written as cos^-1
theta is the angle you are looking for.
so to find the angle you would plug arccos(8/20) into a calculator
I am not sure how to do this on a scientific calculator (i always use graphing now), but here is a link to wolfram alpha (an online calc that carries functions of graphing calculator)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=arc...
it give the answer in radians and degrees

Im pretty sure that with a calculator for a problem like this you you have to use cos-1 since you want the degree.

cos Ө = 8 / 20 = 2 / 5

Ө = 66.4⁰ , 293.6 ⁰

I used the on screen calculator as follows:-

2
/
5
inv
cos
=

this gives :-

66.4⁰_____________________1st quadrant
360⁰ - 66.4⁰ = 293.6 ⁰________4th quadrant