2010 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 13

Problem

In $\triangle ABC$, $\cos(2A-B)+\sin(A+B)=2$ and $AB=4$. What is $BC$?

$\textbf{(A)}\ \sqrt{2} \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ \sqrt{3} \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 2 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 2\sqrt{2} \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 2\sqrt{3}$

Solution

We note that $-1$ $\le$ $\sin x$ $\le$ $1$ and $-1$ $\le$ $\cos x$ $\le$ $1$. Therefore, there is no other way to satisfy this equation other than making both $\cos(2A-B)=1$ and $\sin(A+B)=1$, since any other way would cause one of these values to become greater than 1, which contradicts our previous statement. From this we can easily conclude that $2A-B=0^{\circ}$ and $A+B=90^{\circ}$ and solving this system gives us $A=30^{\circ}$ and $B=60^{\circ}$. It is clear that $\triangle ABC$ is a $30^{\circ},60^{\circ},90^{\circ}$ triangle with $BC=2$ $\Longrightarrow$ $(C)$.

See also

2010 AMC 12B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 12
Followed by
Problem 14
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions. AMC logo.png