2022 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 8
Problem
What is the graph of in the coordinate plane?
Solution 1
Since the equation has even powers of and
, let
and
. Then
. Rearranging gives
, or
. There are two cases:
or
.
If , taking the square root of both sides gives
, and rearranging gives
. Substituting back in
and
gives us
, the equation for a circle.
Similarly, if , we take the square root of both sides to get
, or
, which is equivalent to
, a hyperbola.
Hence, our answer is .
Solution 2 (Factoring)
(Solutions 1 and 2 are in essence the same; Solution 1 lets for convenience, but the two solutions are otherwise identical.)
We can subtract from both sides and factor the left side to get
. If we take the square root of both sides, we are left with two equations:
and
. In the former case, we get
, which, is the formula for a hyperbola. This means that a hyperbola will appear in the graph of the equation. In the latter case, we get
, which is the equation of a circle which will also appear in the graph. Looking at our options, this is the only valid answer. Hence, the answer is
.
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Video Solution(1-16)
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See also
2022 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
Preceded by Problem 7 |
Followed by Problem 9 |
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 AMC 12 Problems and Solutions |
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