2004 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 8

The following problem is from both the 2004 AMC 12A #8 and 2004 AMC 10A #9, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

In the overlapping triangles $\triangle{ABC}$ and $\triangle{ABE}$ sharing common side $AB$ , $\angle{EAB}$ and $\angle{ABC}$ are right angles, $AB=4$ , $BC=6$ , $AE=8$ , and $\overline{AC}$ and $\overline{BE}$ intersect at $D$ . What is the difference between the areas of $\triangle{ADE}$ and $\triangle{BDC}$ ?

$\mathrm {(A)}\ 2 \qquad \mathrm {(B)}\ 4 \qquad \mathrm {(C)}\ 5 \qquad \mathrm {(D)}\ 8 \qquad \mathrm {(E)}\ 9 \qquad$

Solution

Solution 1

If we let $[\ldots]$ denote area, $[ABE] - [ABC] = [ADE] + [ABD] - [ABD] - [BDC] = [ADE] - [BDC]$ . Using the given, $[ABE] = \frac 12 \cdot 8 \cdot 4$ and $[ABC] = \frac 12 \cdot 6 \cdot 4$ , and their difference is $16 - 12 = 4\ \mathrm{(B)}$ .

Solution 2

Since $AE \perp AB$ and $BC \perp AB$ , $AE \parallel BC$ . By alternate interior angles and AA~, we find that $\triangle ADE \sim \triangle CDB$ , with side length ratio $\frac{4}{3}$ . Their heights also have the same ratio, and since the two heights add up to $4$ , we have that $h_{ADE} = 4 \cdot \frac{4}{7} = \frac{16}{7}$ and $h_{CDB} = 3 \cdot \frac 47 = \frac {12}7$ . Subtracting the areas, $\frac{1}{2} \cdot 8 \cdot \frac {16}7 - \frac 12 \cdot 6 \cdot \frac{12}7 = 4$ .

2004 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 7	Followed by Problem 9
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All AMC 12 Problems and Solutions

2004 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 8	Followed by Problem 10
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 10 Problems and Solutions

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2004 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 8

Problem

Contents

Solution

Solution 1

Solution 2

See also