2009 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 10

Problem

In quadrilateral $ABCD$ , $AB = 5$ , $BC = 17$ , $CD = 5$ , $DA = 9$ , and $BD$ is an integer. What is $BD$ ?

$[asy] unitsize(4mm); defaultpen(linewidth(.8pt)+fontsize(8pt)); dotfactor=4; pair C=(0,0), B=(17,0); pair D=intersectionpoints(Circle(C,5),Circle(B,13))[0]; pair A=intersectionpoints(Circle(D,9),Circle(B,5))[0]; pair[] dotted={A,B,C,D}; draw(D--A--B--C--D--B); dot(dotted); label("$D$",D,NW); label("$C$",C,W); label("$B$",B,E); label("$A$",A,NE); [/asy]$

$\textbf{(A)}\ 11 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 12 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 13 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 14 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 15$

Solution

By the triangle inequality we have $BD < DA + AB = 9 + 5 = 14$ , and also $BD + CD > BC$ , hence $BD > BC - CD = 17 - 5 = 12$ .

We got that $12 < BD < 14$ , and as we know that $BD$ is an integer, we must have $BD=\boxed{13}$ .

2009 AMC 12A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 9	Followed by Problem 11
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2009 AMC 12A Problems/Problem 10

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