2010 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 13

Revision as of 13:09, 15 August 2021 by Raina0708 (talk | contribs) (Solution 2)

Problem

The lengths of the sides of a triangle in inches are three consecutive integers. The length of the shortest side is $30\%$ of the perimeter. What is the length of the longest side?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 7 \qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 8\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 9\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 10\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 11$

Solution 1(algebra solution)

Let $n$, $n+1$, and $n+2$ be the lengths of the sides of the triangle. Then the perimeter of the triangle is $n + (n+1) + (n+2) = 3n+3$. Using the fact that the length of the smallest side is $30\%$ of the perimeter, it follows that:

$n = 0.3(3n+3) \Rightarrow n = 0.9n+0.9 \Rightarrow 0.1n = 0.9 \Rightarrow n=9$. The longest side is then $n+2 = 11$. Thus, answer choice $\boxed{\textbf{(E)}\ 11}$ is correct.

Solution 2

Since the length of the shortest side is a whole number and is equal to 3/10 of the perimeter, it follows that the perimeter must be a multiple of 10 Adding the two previous integers to each answer choice, we see that 11+10+9=30 Thus, answer choice E:11 is correct

See Also

2010 AMC 8 (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 AJHSME/AMC 8 Problems and Solutions

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