1991 AHSME Problems/Problem 4

Revision as of 17:45, 21 November 2014 by Bryanc921 (talk | contribs) (Solution)

Problem

Which of the following triangles cannot exist?

(A) An acute isosceles triangle (B) An isosceles right triangle (C) An obtuse right triangle (D) A scalene right triangle (E) A scalene obtuse tr iangle

Solution

$\fbox{C}$ A right triangle has an angle of 90 degrees, so any obtuse angle would make the sum of those two angles over 180. This contradicts the angle sum theorem (all triangles have angles that sum to 180) since negative angles don't exist.

See also

1991 AHSME (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 3
Followed by
Problem 5
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 26 27 28 29 30
All AHSME Problems and Solutions

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