2013 AIME I Problems/Problem 3
Contents
Problem 3
Let be a square, and let and be points on and respectively. The line through parallel to and the line through parallel to divide into two squares and two nonsquare rectangles. The sum of the areas of the two squares is of the area of square Find
Solution
It's important to note that is equivalent to
We define as the length of the side of larger inner square, which is also , as the length of the side of the smaller inner square which is also , and as the side length of . Since we are given that the sum of the areas of the two squares is of the the area of ABCD, we can represent that as . The sum of the two nonsquare rectangles can then be represented as .
Looking back at what we need to find, we can represent as . We have the numerator, and dividing by two gives us the denominator . Dividing gives us an answer of .
Solution 2
Let the side of the square be . Therefore the area of the square is also . We label as and as . Notice that what we need to find is equivalent to: . Since the sum of the two squares () is (as stated in the problem) the area of the whole square, it is clear that the sum of the two rectangles is . Since these two rectangles are congruent, they each have area: . Also note that the area of this is . Plugging this into our equation we get:
See also
2013 AIME I (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
Preceded by Problem 2 |
Followed by Problem 4 | |
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 | ||
All AIME Problems and Solutions |