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Geometry Difficulty 7.1 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Brazil

(i) ABCDABCD is a square with side 11. MM is the midpoint of ABAB, and NN is the midpoint of BCBC. The lines CMCM and DNDN meet at II. Find the area of the triangle CINCIN.

(ii) The midpoints of the sides ABAB, BCBC, CDCD, DADA of the parallelogram ABCDABCD are MM, NN, PP, QQ respectively. Each midpoint is joined to the two vertices not on its side. Show that the area outside the resulting 8-pointed star is 2/52/5 the area of the parallelogram.

(iii) ABCABC is a triangle with CA=CBCA = CB and centroid GG. Show that the area of AGBAGB is 1/31/3 of the area of ABCABC.

(iv) Is (ii) true for all convex quadrilaterals ABCDABCD?

Solution

(i) CINCIN is similar to DCNDCN, so area CIN=(CNDN)2CIN = \left(\frac{CN}{DN}\right)^2 area DCN=(125/2)214=DCN = \left(\frac{\frac{1}{2}}{\sqrt{5/2}}\right)^2 \cdot \frac{1}{4} =

120\frac{1}{20}

Figure 1

(ii) If we stretch the plane parallel to one of sides of the square then all areas are increased by the same factor and hence the ratio area CINarea ABCD\frac{\text{area CIN}}{\text{area ABCD}} is unchanged. If we now shear parallel to one of the sides, areas are unchanged, so the ratio area CINarea ABCD\frac{\text{area CIN}}{\text{area ABCD}} remains 120\frac{1}{20}. Thus the result holds for parallelograms. The area outside the star is made up of 8 small triangles, each area 120\frac{1}{20}, so it is 25\frac{2}{5}.

Figure 2

(iii) Let the median be AMAM. Then AGBAGB and ABCABC have the same base ABAB, so area AGBarea ABC=GMAM=13\frac{\text{area } AGB}{\text{area } ABC} = \frac{GM}{AM} = \frac{1}{3}. This is trivial, but this is a hint for part (iv).

(iv) If we take AA and BB close together, then we get the same figure as in (iii) and so the ratio tends to 13\frac{1}{3}. Hence the 25\frac{2}{5} result is not true for all convex quadrilaterals.

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