2021 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 7

Problem

What is the least possible value of $(xy-1)^2+(x+y)^2$ for real numbers $x$ and $y$ ?

$\textbf{(A)} ~0\qquad\textbf{(B)} ~\frac{1}{4}\qquad\textbf{(C)} ~\frac{1}{2} \qquad\textbf{(D)} ~1 \qquad\textbf{(E)} ~2$

Solution

Expanding, we get that the expression is $x^2+2xy+y^2+x^2y^2-2xy+1$ or $x^2+y^2+x^2y^2+1$ . By the trivial inequality(all squares are nonnegative) the minimum value for this is $\boxed{(D) 1}$ , which can be achieved at $x=y=0$ . ~aop2014

2021 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 6	Followed by Problem 8
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.

Page

Toolbox

Search

2021 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 7

Problem

Solution

See also