2008 AMC 12B Problems/Problem 25
Problem 25
Let
be a trapezoid with
and
. Bisectors of
and
meet at
, and bisectors of
and
meet at
. What is the area of hexagon
?
Solution

Drop perpendiculars to
from
and
, and call the intersections
respectively. Now,
and
. Thus,
.
We conclude
and
.
To simplify things even more, notice that
, so
.
Also,
So the area of
is:
Over to the other side:
is
, and is therefore congruent to
. So
.
The area of the hexagon is clearly ![]()
Alternate Solution
Let
and
meet
at
and
, respectively.
Since
,
, and they share
, triangles
and
are congruent.
By the same reasoning, we also have that triangles
and
are congruent.
Hence, we have
.
If we let the height of the trapezoid be
, we have
.
Thusly, if we find the height of the trapezoid and multiply it by 12, we will be done.
Let the projections of
and
to
be
and
, respectively.
We have
,
, and
.
Therefore,
. Solving this, we easily get that
.
Multiplying this by 12, we find that the area of hexagon
is
, which corresponds to answer choice
.
See Also
| 2008 AMC 12B (Problems • Answer Key • Resources) | |
| Preceded by Problem 24 |
Followed by Last Question |
| 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 12 Problems and Solutions | |
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