2015 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 11

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In the small country of Mathland, all automobile license plates have four symbols. The first must be a vowel (A, E, I, O, or U), the second and third must be two different letters among the 21 non-vowels, and the fourth must be a digit (0 through 9). If the symbols are chosen at random subject to these conditions, what is the probability that the plate will read "AMC8"?

$\textbf{(A) } \frac{1}{22,050} \qquad \textbf{(B) } \frac{1}{21,000}\qquad \textbf{(C) } \frac{1}{10,500}\qquad \textbf{(D) } \frac{1}{2,100} \qquad \textbf{(E) } \frac{1}{1,050}$

The area of $\triangle ABC$ is equal to half the product of its base and height. By the Pythagorean Theorem, we find its height is $\sqrt{1^2+2^2}=\sqrt{5}$, and its base is $\sqrt{2^2+4^2}=\sqrt{20}$. We multiply these and divide by 2 to find the of the triangle is $\frac{\sqrt{5 \cdot 20}}2=\frac{\sqrt{100}}2=\frac{10}2=5$. Since the grid has an area of $30$, the fraction of the grid covered by the triangle is $\frac 5{30}=\boxed{\textbf{(A) }\frac{1}{6}}$.

See Also

2015 AMC 8 (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 10
Followed by
Problem 12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
All AJHSME/AMC 8 Problems and Solutions

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