2003 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 10

Problem

Several figures can be made by attaching two equilateral triangles to the regular pentagon ABCDE in two of the five positions shown. How many non-congruent figures can be constructed in this way?

[asy] size(200); defaultpen(0.9); real r = 5/dir(54).x, h = 5 tan(54*pi/180); pair A = (5,0), B = A+10*dir(72), C = (0,r+h), E = (-5,0), D = E+10*dir(108); draw(A--B--C--D--E--cycle); label("\(A\)",A+(0,-0.5),SSE); label("\(B\)",B+(0.5,0),ENE); label("\(C\)",C+(0,0.5),N); label("\(D\)",D+(-0.5,0),WNW); label("\(E\)",E+(0,-0.5),SW); // real l = 5*sqrt(3); pair ab = (h+l)*dir(72), bc = (h+l)*dir(54); pair AB = (ab.y, h-ab.x), BC = (bc.x,h+bc.y), CD = (-bc.x,h+bc.y), DE = (-ab.y, h-ab.x), EA = (0,-l); draw(A--AB--B^^B--BC--C^^C--CD--D^^D--DE--E^^E--EA--A, dashed); // dot(A); dot(B); dot(C); dot(D); dot(E); dot(AB); dot(BC); dot(CD); dot(DE); dot(EA); [/asy]

$\text {(A) } 1 \qquad \text {(B) } 2 \qquad \text {(C) } 3 \qquad \text {(D) } 4 \qquad \text {(E) } 5$

Solution

Place the first triangle. Now, we can place the second triangle either adjacent to the first, or with one side between them, for a total of $\boxed{\text{(B) }2}$

Solution 2

Take ${5 \choose 2}$ to realize there are 10 ways to choose 2 different triangles. Then divide by 5 for each vertex of a pentagon to get $\boxed{\text{(B) }2}$

See Also

2003 AMC 12B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 9
Followed by
Problem 11
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

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