1987 AHSME Problems/Problem 21

Problem

There are two natural ways to inscribe a square in a given isosceles right triangle. If it is done as in Figure 1 below, then one finds that the area of the square is $441 \text{cm}^2$ . What is the area (in $\text{cm}^2$ ) of the square inscribed in the same $\triangle ABC$ as shown in Figure 2 below?

$[asy] draw((0,0)--(10,0)--(0,10)--cycle); draw((-25,0)--(-15,0)--(-25,10)--cycle); draw((-20,0)--(-20,5)--(-25,5)); draw((6.5,3.25)--(3.25,0)--(0,3.25)--(3.25,6.5)); label("A", (-25,10), W); label("B", (-25,0), W); label("C", (-15,0), E); label("Figure 1", (-20, -5)); label("Figure 2", (5, -5)); label("A", (0,10), W); label("B", (0,0), W); label("C", (10,0), E); [/asy]$

$\textbf{(A)}\ 378 \qquad \textbf{(B)}\ 392 \qquad \textbf{(C)}\ 400 \qquad \textbf{(D)}\ 441 \qquad \textbf{(E)}\ 484$

1987 AHSME (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 20	Followed by Problem 22
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1987 AHSME Problems/Problem 21

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