2023 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 15
Contents
Question
Usain is walking for exercise by zigzagging across a -meter by -meter rectangular field, beginning at point and ending on the segment . He wants to increase the distance walked by zigzagging as shown in the figure below . What angle will produce in a length that is meters? (This figure is not drawn to scale. Do not assume that he zigzag path has exactly four segments as shown; there could be more or fewer.)
Solution 1
By "unfolding" into a straight line, we get a right angled triangle .
~lptoggled
Solution 2(Trig Bash)
We can let be the length of one of the full segments of the zigzag. We can then notice that . By Pythagorean Theorem, we see that . This implies that: We also realize that , so this means that: We can then substitute , so this gives:
Now we have: meaning that: This means that , giving us
~ap246
Video Solution 1 by OmegaLearn
See also
2023 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 14 |
Followed by Problem 16 |
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All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions |
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