1995 AHSME Problems/Problem 22

Problem

A pentagon is formed by cutting a triangular corner from a rectangular piece of paper. The five sides of the pentagon have lengths $13, 19, 20, 25$ and $31$ , although this is not necessarily their order around the pentagon. The area of the pentagon is

$\mathrm{(A) \ 459 } \qquad \mathrm{(B) \ 600 } \qquad \mathrm{(C) \ 680 } \qquad \mathrm{(D) \ 720 } \qquad \mathrm{(E) \ 745 }$

Solution

$[asy] defaultpen(linewidth(0.7)); draw((0,0)--(31,0)--(31,25)--(12,25)--(0,20)--cycle); draw((0,20)--(0,25)--(12,25)--cycle,linetype("4 4")); [/asy]$

Since the pentagon is cut from a rectangle, the cut-off triangle must be right. Since all of the lengths given are integers, it follows that this triangle is a Pythagorean Triple. We know that $31$ and either $25,\, 20$ must be the dimensions of the rectangle, since they are the largest lengths. With some trial-and-error, if we assign the shortest side, $13$ , to be the hypotenuse of the triangle, we see the $5-12-13$ triple. Indeed this works, by placing the $31$ side opposite from the $19$ side and the $25$ side opposite from the $20$ side, leaving the cutaway side to be, as before, $13$ .

To find the area of the pentagon, we subtract the area of the triangle from that of the big rectangle: $31\cdot 25-\frac{12\cdot5}{2}=775-30=745\Longrightarrow \boxed{\mathrm{(E)}745}$ .

1995 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
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1995 AHSME Problems/Problem 22

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