2018 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 9

All of the triangles in the diagram below are similar to isosceles triangle $ABC$ , in which $AB=AC$ . Each of the 7 smallest triangles has area 1, and $\triangle ABC$ has area 40. What is the area of trapezoid $DBCE$ ?

$[asy] unitsize(5); dot((0,0)); dot((60,0)); dot((50,10)); dot((10,10)); dot((30,30)); draw((0,0)--(60,0)--(50,10)--(30,30)--(10,10)--(0,0)); draw((10,10)--(50,10)); label("$B$",(0,0),SW); label("$C$",(60,0),SE); label("$E$",(50,10),E); label("$D$",(10,10),W); label("$A$",(30,30),N); draw((10,10)--(15,15)--(20,10)--(25,15)--(30,10)--(35,15)--(40,10)--(45,15)--(50,10)); draw((15,15)--(45,15)); [/asy]$

$\textbf{(A) } 16 \qquad \textbf{(B) } 18 \qquad \textbf{(C) } 20 \qquad \textbf{(D) } 22 \qquad \textbf{(E) } 24$

Solutions

Solution 1

Let $x$ be the area of $ADE$ . Note that $x$ is comprised of the $7$ small isosceles triangles and a triangle similar to $ADE$ with side length ratio $3:4$ (so an area ratio of $9:16$ ). Thus, we have $x=7+\dfrac{9}{16}x$ This gives $x=16$ , so the area of $DBCE=40-x=\boxed{24}$ .

Solution 2

Let the base length of the small triangle be $x$ . Then, there is a triangle $ADE$ encompassing the 7 small triangles and sharing the top angle with a base length of $4x$ . Because the area is proportional to the square of the side, let the base $BC$ be $\sqrt{40}x$ . Then triangle $ADE$ has an area of 16. So the area is $40 - 16 = \boxed{24}$ .

Solution 3

Notice $\big[DBCE\big]=\big[ABC\big]-\big[ADE\big]$ . Let the base of the small triangles of area 1 be $x$ , then the base length of $\Delta ADE=4x$ . Notice, $\big(\frac{DE}{BC}\big)^2=\frac{1}{40}\implies \frac{x}{BC}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{40}}$ , then $4x=\frac{4BC}{\sqrt{40}}\implies \big[ADE\big]=\big(\frac{4}{\sqrt{40}}\big)^2\cdot \big[ABC\big]=\frac{2}{5}\big[ABC\big]$ Thus, $\big[DBCE\big]=\big[ABC\big]-\big[ADE\big]=\big[ABC\big]\big(1-\frac{2}{5}\big)=\frac{3}{5}\cdot 40=\boxed{24}$

Solution by ktong

Solution 4

The area of $ADE$ is 16 times the area of the small triangle, as they are similar and their side ratio is $4:1$ . Therefore the area of the trapezoid is $40-16=\boxed{24}$ .

Solution 5

You can see that we can create a "stack" of 5 triangles congruent to the 7 small triangles shown here, arranged in a row above those 7, whose total area would be 5. Similarly, we can create another row of 3, and finally 1 more at the top, as follows. We know this cumulative area will be $7+5+3+1=16$ , so to find the area of such trapezoid $BCED$ , we just take $40-16=\boxed{24}$ , like so.

2018 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 8	Followed by Problem 10
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All AMC 10 Problems and Solutions

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