2013 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 25
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[hide]Problem
All diagonals are drawn in a regular octagon. At how many distinct points in the interior
of the octagon (not on the boundary) do two or more diagonals intersect?
Solution 1 (Drawing)
If you draw a clear diagram like the one below, it is easy to see that there are points.
Solution 2 (Working Backwards)
Let the number of intersections be . We know that
, as every
vertices on the octagon forms a quadrilateral with intersecting diagonals which is an intersection point. However, four diagonals intersect in the center, so we need to subtract
from this count,
. Note that diagonals like
,
, and
all intersect at the same point. There are
of this type with three diagonals intersecting at the same point, so we need to subtract
of the
(one is kept as the actual intersection). In the end, we obtain
.
Solution 3 (Answer choices and reasoning)
We know that the amount of intersection points is at most , as in solution
. There's probably going to be more than
intersections counted multiple times (to get
), leading us to the only reasonable answer,
.
-Lcz
Note: You can easily prove this by looking at the simple case of the diagonals intersecting in the middle of the octagon. major diagonals intersect here and only
intersection point is counted so you can subtract
from
. Then look to the middle area of the octagon. In this area, if we label the major diagonal as the one where there are
points between the two points forming the diagonal, and the semi-minor diagonal the diagonal where there is one less point between the two diagonal forming points, there are
intersection points of a major diagonal and
semi-minor diagonals. This means that these eight points would be, not double-counted -which the calculation by Lcz accounts for- but triple-counted. Thus, taking away one for each of these points is more than enough to see the value of the answer has to be less than or equal to
. Choice A is the only answer that works.
Solution 4 (Drawing but easier)
Like solution one, we may draw. Except note that the octagon has eight regions, and each region has an equal number of points, so drawing only one of the eight regions and the intersection points suffices. One of the eight regions contains points (not including the octagon center). However each adjacent region share one side in common and that side contains
intersection points, so in actuality there are
points per region. We multiply this by
to get
and add the one center point to get
.
~skyscraper
Video Solution by Richard Rusczyk
https://artofproblemsolving.com/videos/amc/2013amc10a/359
See Also
2013 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | ||
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