2018 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 9
All of the triangles in the diagram below are similar to iscoceles triangle , in which . Each of the 7 smallest triangles has area 1, and has area 40. What is the area of trapezoid ?
Solution 1
Let be the area of . Note that is comprised of the small isosceles triangles and a triangle similar to with side length ratio (so an area ratio of ). Thus, we have This gives , so the area of .
Solution 2
Let the base length of the small triangle be . Then, there is a triangle encompassing the 7 small triangles and sharing the top angle with a base length of . Because the area is proportional to the square of the side, let the base be . Then triangle has an are of 16. So the area is .