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1988 AJHSME Problems/Problem 9

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Problem

An isosceles triangle is a triangle with two sides of equal length. How many of the five triangles on the square grid below are isosceles?

for(int a=0; a<12; ++a) {  draw((a,0)--(a,6)); }for(int b=0; b<7; ++b) {  draw((0,b)--(11,b)); }draw((0,6)--(2,6)--(1,4...

\text{(A)}\ 1 \qquad \text{(B)}\ 2 \qquad \text{(C)}\ 3 \qquad \text{(D)}\ 4 \qquad \text{(E)}\ 5

Solution

The first triangle has two legs of length \sqrt{2^2+1^2}, the second has two legs of length 2, the leg lengths of the third triangle are 2, \sqrt{5}, and \sqrt{13}, two legs of the fourth triangle have length \sqrt{3^2+1^2}, and two legs of the fifth triangle have length \sqrt{1^2+2^2}. Therefore all of the triangles in the diagram except the third are isosceles, and there are 4\Rightarrow \mathrm{(D)} are isosceles.

See Also

1988 AJHSME (ProblemsResources)
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
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