Grade 7: MATH LEARNING GUIDE

Lesson 30: Basic Concepts and Terms in Geometry

About the Lesson:

This lesson focuses on plane figures. Included in the discussion are the basic
terms used in geometry such as points, lines and planes. The focus of this section is the
different ways of describing and representing the basic objects used in the study of
geometry.

Objectives:
In this lesson, the participants are expected to:
1. describe the undefined terms;
2. give examples of objects that maybe used to represent the undefined terms;
3. name the identified point(s), line(s) and plane(s) in a given figure;
4. formulate the definition of parallel lines, intersecting lines, concurrent lines, skew
lines, segment, ray, and congruent segments;
5. perform the set operations on segments and rays.

Lesson Proper

A. Introduction to the Undefined Terms:

In any mathematical system, definitions are important. Elements and objects must
be defined precisely. However, there are some terms or objects that are the primitive
building blocks of the system and hence cannot be defined independently of other
objects. In geometry, these are point, line, plane, and space. There are also relationships
like between that are not formally defined but are merely described or illustrated.

In Euclidean Geometry, the geometric terms point, line, and plane are all
undefined terms and are purely mental concepts or ideas. However, we can use concrete
objects around us to represent these ideas. Thus, these undefined terms can only be
described.

Term Figure Description Notation

A point suggests an exact location in space.
Point A It has no dimension. point A
We use a capital letter to name a point.
A line is a set of points arranged in a row.
It is extended endlessly in both directions. line m or
R V It is a one-dimensional figure.
m
Two points determine a line. That is, two RV
Line
distinct points are contained by exactly one line.
We use a lower case letter or any two points on
the line to name the line.

A plane is a set of points in an endless flat

surface.
Plane P The following determine a plane: (a) three non- plane PQR or
R collinear points; (b) two intersecting lines; PQR
Q (c) two parallel lines; or (d) a line and a point
not on the line.
We use a lower case letter or three points on the
plane to name the plane.
I. Activity 1
Objects Representing the Undefined Terms

1. These are some of the objects around us that could represent a point or line or plane.
Place each object in its corresponding column in the table below.

Blackboard Corner of a table intersection of a side tip of a needle

wall and ceiling
Laser Electric wire surface of a table
Intersection of the front
wall, a side wall and
ceiling
Paper
Tip of a ballpen Wall Edge of a table

Objects that could represent Objects that could represent Objects that could represent
a point a line a plane

II. Questions to Ponder:

1. Consider the stars in the night sky. Do they represent points?
2. Consider the moon in its fullest form. Would you consider a full moon as a
representation of a point?
3. A dot represents a point. How big area dot that represents a point and a dot that
represents a circular region?
4. A point has no dimension. A line has a dimension. How come that a line
composed of dimensionless points has a dimension?
5. A pencil is an object that represents a line. Does a pencil extend infinitely in both
directions?Is a pencil a line?

III. Exercises

1. List down 5 other objects that could represent

a. a point.
b. a line.
c. a plane.
 2. Use the figure below, identify what is being asked.

M
A B C

D
E
F k G H
I
p
J

a) Name the point(s) in the interior region of the circle.

b) Name the point(s) in the interior region of the triangle.

c) Name the line(s) in the interior region of the triangle.

d) Give other name(s) for line p.

e) Name the plane that can be formed by the three points in the interior of the circle.

f) Name the plane formed by line pand point I.

g) Name the points outside the circular region.

h) Name the points outside the region bounded by the triangle.

i) Name the points of plane M.

j) Give other names for plane M.

C. Recall:
(a) Two points determine a line.
(b) Three points not on the same line determine a plane.
(c) Two intersecting lines determine a plane.
(d) Two parallel lines determine a plane.
(e) A line and a point not on the line determine a plane.

Given: The points A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H are corners of a box shown below:

A B

D C

E F

H
G
Answer the following:

1. How many lines are possible which can be formed by these points? (Hint: There are
more than 20.) Refer to statement (a) above. __________

2. What are the lines that contain the point A? (Hint: There are more than 3 lines.)
___________________________

3. Identify the different planes which can be formed by these points. (Hint: There are
more than six. Refer to statement (d) above. _______________

4. What are the planes that contain line DC? __________

5. What are the planes that intersect at line BF? ________

B. Other basic geometric terms on points and lines

The three undefined terms in Plane Geometry are point, line and plane.

Relationships between the above objects are defined and described in the activities
that follow.

Geometric Terms Illustration

Collinear points are points on the same
line.
Coplanar points/lines are points/lines
on the same plane.

The following activity sheet will help us develop the definitions of the other
relationships.

I. Activity 2

Other Geometric Terms on Lines

Refer to the figure below:

Given: The points A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H are corners of a box as shown:
A B

D C

E F

H G

Intersecting Lines
Lines DH and DC intersectat point D. They are intersecting lines.
Lines CG and GF intersect at point G. They are also intersecting lines.
 1. What other lines intersect with line DH? ___________
2. What other lines intersect with line CG? ___________
3. What lines intersect with EF? ________________

Parallel Lines
Lines AB and DC are parallel.
Lines DH and CG are parallel.

4. What other lines are parallel to line AB? __________

5. What other lines are parallel to line CG? __________
6. What lines are parallel to line AD? _____________

How would you describe parallel lines?

Concurrent Lines
Lines AD, AB, and AE are concurrent at point A.
Lines GH, GF, and GC are concurrent at point G.

7. Name if possible, other lines that are concurrent at point A. ___________

8. Name if possible, other lines that are concurrent at point G. ___________
9. What lines are concurrent at point F? __________

What do you think are concurrent lines? How would you distinguish concurrent
lines from intersecting lines?

Skew Lines
Lines DH and EF are two lines which are neither intersecting nor parallel. These
two lines do not lie on a plane and are called skew lines. Lines AE and GF are also skew
lines. The lines DH, CG, HE and GF are skew to AB.

10. What other lines are skew to DH? _____________

11. What other lines are skew to EF? ______________
12. What lines are skew to BF? __________________

Remember:
- Two lines are intersecting if they have a common point.
- Three or more lines are concurrent if they all intersect at only one point.
- Parallel lines are coplanar lines that do not meet.
- Skew lines are lines that do not lie on the same plane.

C. Subsets of Lines

The line segment and the ray are some of the subsets of a line. A segment has
two endpoints while a ray has only one endpoint and is extended endlessly in one
direction. The worksheets below will help you formulate the definitions of segments and
rays.
Activity 3
Definition of a Line Segment

ABCD

ADis a line segment. The points A, B, C, and Dare on line segment AD. In notation, we
write ̅̅̅̅
𝐴𝐷 or simply AD. We can also name it as ̅̅̅̅
𝐷𝐴 or DA.

E F G H I J

FH is a segment. The points F, G, and H are on line segment FH. The points E, I, and J
are not on line segmentFH. In notation, we write ̅̅̅̅
𝐹𝐻 . We can also name it as ̅̅̅̅
𝐻𝐹 or HF.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V

The points E,F,G, and J are on line segment EQ or segment QE.

The points C,D,T, and U are not on line segment EQ.

Answer the following:

1. Name other points which are on line segment EQ. ________________

2. Name other points which are not on line segment EQ. ________________
Complete the following statements:

3. A line segment is part of a line that has __________.

4. Line segmentEQconsists of the points ____________________.

The line segment. A line segment is part of a line that has two endpoints. We define a
line segment 𝐴𝐵̅̅̅̅ as a subset of line 𝐴𝐵
⃡ consisting of the points A and B and all the points
between them. If the line to which a line segment belongs is given a scale so that it turns
into the real line, then the length of the segment can be determined by getting the distance
between its endpoints.

Activity 4
Congruent Segments

Given the points on the number line:

A B C D E F G

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
 1. Determine the length of the following:

a) AB = _______ e) AC= _________

b) DE = _______ f) DG = _________
c) BD= _______ g) BE = _________
d) DF = _______ h) CG = _________

2. The following segments are congruent: ABandDE; BD andDF; ACand DG, BEand
CG.

3. The following pairs of segments are not congruent: AB and CF; BD and AE; AC
and BF; BG and AD.

4. Using the figure below, which segments are congruent?

J K L M N O P Q R

-7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Define congruent segments: Congruent segments are segments __________________.

Remember:
Segments are congruent if they have the same length.

Activity 5
Definition of a Ray

A B C

This is ray AB. We can also name it as ray AC.

In symbol, we write𝐴𝐶 .

The points A, B, C are on ray AC.

X Y Z

This is ray ZY. We can also name it as ray ZX.

In symbol, we write𝑍𝑋. We do NOT write it as𝑋𝑍 ⃡ .

The points X, Y, Z are on ray ZY.

D E F G

This is ray DE. We can also name it as ray DF or ray DG.

The points D, E, F, G are on ray DE.

Q R S T
 This is rayTS. We can also name it as ray TR or ray TQ.

The points Q, R, S, T are on ray TS.

H I J K L M

This is ray ML.

1. How else can you name this ray? _________

2. What are the points on ray ML? ________________

N O P Q R S T U

The points Q, R, S, T, U are on ray QR.

The points N, O, P are not on ray QR.

3. How else can you name ray QR? _______________.

A B C D E F G H I J

4. What are the points on ray DE? _______________

5. What are the points not on ray DE? ____________

5. How else can you name ray DE? _________________

M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y

7. What are the points on ray QT?

8. What are the points on ray PQ?

9. What are the points on ray XU?

10. What are the points on ray SP?

In general, how do you describe the points on any ray AC?

_________________________________________

The ray.A ray is also a part of a line but has only one endpoint, and extends endlessly in
one direction. We name a ray by its endpoint and one of its points. We always start on the
endpoint. The figure is ray AB or we can also name it as ray AC. It is not correct to name it
as ray BA or ray CA. In notation, we write AB or AC .

A B C
 A B C

The points A, B, C are on ray AC.

However, referring to another ray BC , the point A is not on ray BC .

Remember:
Ray 𝐴𝐵 is a subset of the line AB. The points of 𝐴𝐵 are the points on segment AB
and all the points X such that B is between A and X.

We say:
AB is parallel to CD
𝐴𝐵 is parallel to CD
𝐴𝐵 is parallel to ⃡𝐶𝐷 if the lines ⃡𝐴𝐵 and ⃡𝐶𝐷 are parallel.
⃡𝐴𝐵 is parallel to CD

D. Set operations involving line and its subsets

Since the lines, segments and rays are all sets of points, we can perform set
operations on these sets.

Activity 6
The Union/Intersection of Segments and Rays

Use the figure below to determine the part of the line being described by the
union or intersection of two segments, rays or segment and ray:

A B C D E F

Example: 𝐷𝐸 ∪ 𝐶𝐹 is the set of all points on the ray DE and segment CF. Thus, all these
points determine ray 𝐶𝐷.

𝐵𝐶 ∩ 𝐸𝐷 is the set of all points common to ray 𝐵𝐶 and ray 𝐸𝐷 . The common
points are the points on the segment BE.
Answer the following:

1) ̅̅̅̅
𝐴𝐵 ∪ ̅̅̅̅
𝐵𝐸 = ____________

̅̅̅̅ = ____________
2) 𝐷𝐹 ∪ 𝐵𝐷

3) 𝐶𝐵 ∪ ̅̅̅̅
𝐶𝐸 = ____________

̅̅̅̅ = ____________
4) 𝐷𝐸 ∪ 𝐵𝐷

5) 𝐶𝐴 ∪ 𝐶𝐷 = ____________
 𝐵𝐹 ∩ ̅̅̅̅
6) ̅̅̅̅ 𝐴𝐷 = ____________

̅̅̅̅ = ____________
7) 𝐹𝐷 ∩ 𝐴𝐵

8) 𝐹𝐸 ∩ 𝐶𝐷 = ____________

9) 𝐶𝐴 ∩ 𝐶𝐸 = ____________

̅̅̅̅ ∩ 𝐶𝐸 = ____________
10) 𝐵𝐶

Summary
In this lesson, you learned about the basic terms in geometry which are point, line,
plane, segment, and ray. You also learned how to perform set operations on segments and
rays.