AoPSWiki
Try our innovative online adaptive learning system, Alcumus.
Over 1100 problems and 60+ video lessons. FREE!

2004 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 6

From AoPSWiki

Revision as of 17:37, 7 February 2009 by Misof (Talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Current revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
The following problem is from both the 2004 AMC 12B #6 and 2004 AMC 10B #8, so both problems redirect to this page.

Problem

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is 8 miles southwest of downtown St. Paul and 10 miles southeast of downtown Minneapolis. Which of the following is closest to the number of miles between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis?

(\mathrm {A}) 13\qquad (\mathrm {B}) 14 \qquad (\mathrm {C}) 15 \qquad (\mathrm {D}) 16 \qquad (\mathrm {E}) 17

Solution

The directions "southwest" and "southeast" are orthogonal. Thus the described situation is a right triangle with legs 8 miles and 10 miles long. The hypotenuse length is \sqrt{8^2 + 10^2} \sim 12.8, and thus the answer is \mathrm{(A)}.

Without a calculator one can note that 8^2 + 10^2 = 164 < 169 = 13^2.

See Also

2004 AMC 12B (ProblemsResources)
Preceded by
Problem 5
Followed by
Problem 7
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
2004 AMC 10B (ProblemsResources)
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
Stay informed about new Art of Problem Solving developments.
Click here to join our mailing lists.
© Copyright 2008 AoPS Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. • FoundationPrivacyContact Us