2004 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 6

The following problem is from both the 2004 AMC 12B #6 and 2004 AMC 10B #8, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is $8$ miles southwest of downtown St. Paul and $10$ miles southeast of downtown Minneapolis. Which of the following is closest to the number of miles between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis?

$\mathrm{(A)\ }13\qquad\mathrm{(B)\ }14\qquad\mathrm{(C)\ }15\qquad\mathrm{(D)\ }16\qquad\mathrm{(E)\ }17$

Solution

The directions "southwest" and "southeast" are orthogonal. Thus the described situation is a right triangle with legs 8 miles and 10 miles long. The hypotenuse length is $\sqrt{8^2 + 10^2} \sim 12.8$ , and thus the answer is $\mathrm{(A)}$ .

Without a calculator one can note that $8^2 + 10^2 = 164 < 169 = 13^2\rightarrow\boxed{A}$ .

2004 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 5	Followed by Problem 7
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All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions

2004 AMC 10B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 7	Followed by Problem 9
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 10 Problems and Solutions

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

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2004 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 6

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