2005 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 23

Problem

Let $AB$ be a diameter of a circle and let $C$ be a point on $AB$ with $2\cdot AC=BC$ . Let $D$ and $E$ be points on the circle such that $DC \perp AB$ and $DE$ is a second diameter. What is the ratio of the area of $\triangle DCE$ to the area of $\triangle ABD$ ?

$[asy] unitsize(2.5cm); defaultpen(fontsize(10pt)+linewidth(.8pt)); dotfactor=3; pair O=(0,0), C=(-1/3.0), B=(1,0), A=(-1,0); pair D=dir(aCos(C.x)), E=(-D.x,-D.y); draw(A--B--D--cycle); draw(D--E--C); draw(unitcircle,white); drawline(D,C); dot(O); clip(unitcircle); draw(unitcircle); label("$E$",E,SSE); label("$B$",B,E); label("$A$",A,W); label("$D$",D,NNW); label("$C$",C,SW); draw(rightanglemark(D,C,B,2));[/asy]$

$\mathrm{(A) \ } \frac{1}{6}\qquad \mathrm{(B) \ } \frac{1}{4}\qquad \mathrm{(C) \ } \frac{1}{3}\qquad \mathrm{(D) \ } \frac{1}{2}\qquad \mathrm{(E) \ } \frac{2}{3}$

Solution 1

WLOG, Let us assume that the diameter is of length $1$ .

The length of $AC$ is $\frac{1}{3}$ and $CO$ is $\frac{1}{2}-\frac{1}{3} = \frac{1}{6}$ .

$OD$ is the radius of the circle, which is $\frac{1}{2}$ , so using the Pythagorean Theorem the height $CD$ of $\triangle DCO$ is $\sqrt{\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)^2-\left(\frac{1}{6}\right)^2} = \frac{\sqrt{2}}{3}$ . This is also the height of the $\triangle ABD$ .

The area of $\triangle DCO$ is $\frac{1}{2}\cdot\frac{1}{6}\cdot\frac{\sqrt{2}}{3}$ = $\frac{\sqrt{2}}{36}$ .

The height of $\triangle DCE$ can be found using the area of $\triangle DCO$ and $DO$ as base.

Hence, the height of $\triangle DCE$ is $\dfrac{\dfrac{\sqrt{2}}{36}}{\dfrac{1}{2}\cdot\dfrac{1}{2}}$ = $\dfrac{\sqrt{2}}{9}$ .

The diameter is the base for both the triangles $\triangle DCE$ and $\triangle ABD$ ,

Hence, the ratio of the area of $\triangle DCE$ to the area of $\triangle ABD$ is $\dfrac{\dfrac{\sqrt{2}}{9}}{\dfrac{\sqrt{2}}{3}}$ = $\dfrac{1}{3} \Rightarrow C$

Solution 2

Since $\triangle DCE$ and $\triangle ABD$ share a base, the ratio of their areas is the ratio of their altitudes. Draw the altitude from $C$ to $DE$ .

$[asy] import graph; import olympiad; pair O,A,B,C,D,E,F; O=(0,0);A=(15,0);B=(-15,0);C=(5,0);D=(5,14.142135623730950488016887242097);E=(-5,-14.142135623730950488016887242097);F=(0.5555555555555555,1.5713484026367722764463208046774); draw(Circle((0,0),15)); draw(A--B);draw(D--E);draw(C--D);draw(C--E);draw(C--F);draw(A--D);draw(D--B); label("A",A,NE);label("B",B,W);label("C",C,SE);label("D",D,NE);label("E",E,SW);label("O",O,SW);label("F",F,NW); markscalefactor=0.2; draw(anglemark(C,F,D),blue);draw(anglemark(D,C,B),blue); [/asy]$ $OD=r, OC=\frac{1}{3}r$ .

Since $m\angle DCO=m\angle DFC=90^\circ$ , then $\triangle DCO\cong \triangle DFC$ . So the ratio of the two altitudes is $\frac{CF}{DC}=\frac{OC}{DO}=\frac{1}{3}\Rightarrow \text{(C)}$

Solution 3

Say the center of the circle is point $O$ ; Without loss of generality, assume $AC=2$ , so $CB=4$ and the diameter and radius are $6$ and $3$ , respectively. Therefore, $CO=1$ , and $DO=3$ . The area of $\triangle DCE$ can be expressed as $\frac{1}{2}(CD)(6)\text{sin }(CDE).$ $\frac{1}{2}(CD)(6)$ happens to be the area of $\triangle ABD$ . Furthermore, $\text{sin } CDE = \frac{CO}{DO},$ or $\frac{1}{3}.$ Therefore, the ratio is $\frac{1}{3}.$

Solution 4

WLOG, let $AC=1$ , $BC=2$ , so radius of the circle is $\frac{3}{2}$ and $OC=\frac{1}{2}$ . As in solution 1, By same altitude, the ratio $[DCE]/[ABD]=PE/AB$ , where $P$ is the point where $DC$ extended meets circle $O$ . Note that angle P = 90 deg, so DCO ~ DPE with ratio 1:2, so PE = 1. Thus, our ratio is $\frac{1}{3}$ .

2005 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 22	Followed by Problem 24
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