Instead of describing a circle by an equation relating x and y, the parametric form describes every point on it using a single variable θ — the angle that the radius to that point makes with the positive X-axis. For the standard circle x2+y2=r2, dropping a perpendicular from a point P(x,y) on the circle to the X-axis creates a right triangle giving cosθ=x/r and sinθ=y/r, i.e.
x=rcosθ,y=rsinθ
For a circle centred at (h,k) this becomes x=h+rcosθ, y=k+rsinθ. Because it involves only one variable, the parametric form is often quicker to work with than the two-variable Cartesian equation — particularly when finding a tangent at a point identified by its angle, or when a problem is naturally phrased in terms of an angle (as with tangents from two different inclinations, Miscellaneous Exercise Q.26).