12th Annual Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament

Saturday 21 February 2009

Individual Round: Geometry Test

1. [3] A rectangular piece of paper with side lengths 5 by 8 is folded along the dashed lines shown below,
so that the folded flaps just touch at the corners as shown by the dotted lines. Find the area of the
resulting trapezoid.

Answer: 55/2

Solution: Drawing the perpendiculars from the point of intersection of the corners to the bases of
the trapezoid, we see that we have similar 3 − 4 − 5 right triangles, and we can calculate that the length
of the smaller base is 3. Thus the area of the trapezoid is 8+32 · 5 = 55/2.

2. [3] The corner of a unit cube is chopped off such that the cut runs through the three vertices adjacent
to the vertex of the chosen corner. What is the height of the cube when the freshly-cut face is placed
on a table?
√
Answer: 2 3/3
√
Solution: The major √ √
diagonal has a length of 3. The volume of the pyramid is 1/6, and so its
height h satisfies 13 · h · 43 ( 2)2 = 1/6 since the freshly cut face is an equilateral triangle of side length
√ √
2. Thus h = 3/3, and the answer follows.

3. [4] Let T be a right triangle with sides having lengths 3, 4, and 5. A point P is called awesome if P is
the center of a parallelogram whose vertices all lie on the boundary of T . What is the area of the set
of awesome points?
Answer: 3/2

Solution: The set of awesome points is the medial triangle, which has area 6/4 = 3/2.

4. [4] A kite is a quadrilateral whose diagonals are perpendicular. Let kite ABCD be such that ∠B =
∠D = 90◦ . Let M and N be the points of tangency of the incircle of ABCD to AB and BC respectively.
Let ω be the circle centered at C and tangent to AB and AD. Construct another kite AB 0 C 0 D0 that is
similar to ABCD and whose incircle is ω. Let N 0 be the point of tangency of B 0 C 0 to ω. If M N 0 k AC,
then what is the ratio of AB : BC?
√
1+ 5
Answer: 2

1
 Solution: Let’s focus on the right triangle ABC and the semicircle inscribed in it since the situation
is symmetric about AC. First we find the radius a of circle O. Let AB = x and BC = y. Drawing the
radii OM and ON , we see that AM = x − a and 4AM O ∼ 4ABC. In other words,
AM AB
=
MO BC
x−a x
=
a y
xy
a= .
x+y
Now we notice that the situation is homothetic about A. In particular,

4AM O ∼ 4ON C ∼ 4CN 0 C 0 .

Also, CB and CN 0 are both radii of circle C. Thus, when M N 0 k AC 0 , we have

AM = CN 0 = CB
x−a=y
xy
a= =x−y
x+y
x2 − xy − y 2 = 0
r
y y2
x= ± + y2
2 √ 4
AB x 1+ 5
= = .
BC y 2

√ √
5. [4] Circle B has radius 6 7. Circle A, centered at point C, has radius 7 and is contained in B. Let
L be the locus of centers C such that there exists a point D on the boundary of B with the following
property: if the tangents from D to circle A intersect circle B again at X and Y , then XY is also
tangent to A. Find the area contained by the boundary of L.
Answer: 168π

Solution: The conditions imply that there exists a triangle such that B is the circumcircle and A
is the incircle for the position of A. The distance between the circumcenter and incenter is given by
p
(R − 2r)R, where R, r are the circumradius
√ and inradius, respectively. Thus the locus of C is a
circle concentric to B with radius 2 42. The conclusion follows.

6. [4] Let ABC be a triangle in the coordinate plane with vertices on lattice points and with AB = 1.
Suppose the perimeter of ABC is less than 17. Find the largest possible value of 1/r, where r is the
inradius of ABC.
√ √
Answer: 1 + 5 2 + 65

Solution: Let a denote the area of the triangle, r the inradius, and p the perimeter. Then a = rp/2,
so r = 2a/p > 2a/17. Notice that a = h/2 where h is the height of the triangle from C to AB, and h is
an integer since the vertices are lattice points. Thus we first guess that the inradius is minimized when
h = 1 and the area is 1/2. In this case, we can now assume WLOG that√A = (0, 0), B = √ (1, 0), and
C = (n + 1, 1) for some nonnegative integer n. The perimeter of ABC is n2 + 2n + 2 + n2 + 1 + 1.
Since n = 8 yields a perimeter greater than 17, the required
√ √ triangle has n = 7 and inradius r = 1/p =
√1 √ which yields the answer of 1/r = 1 + 5 2 + 65. We can now verify that this is indeed
1+5 2+ 65

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 minimal over all h by noting that its perimeter is greater than 17/2, which is the upper bound in the
case h ≥ 2.

7. [5] In 4ABC, D is the midpoint of BC, E is the foot of the perpendicular from A to BC, and F is
the foot of the perpendicular from D to AC. Given that BE = 5, EC = 9, and the area of triangle
ABC is 84, compute |EF |.
√ √
Answer: 6 537 , 20521
7585

Solution: There are two possibilities for the triangle ABC based on whether E is between B and
C or not. We first consider the former case.
We find from the area and the Pythagorean theorem
√ that AE = 12, AB = 13, and AC = 15. We can
then use Stewart’s theorem to obtain AD = 2 37.
1
Since the area of 4ADC is half that of ABC, we have 2 AC · DF = 42, so DF = 14/5. Also,
DC = 14/2 = 7 so ED = 9 − 7 = 2.
√
Notice that AEDF is a cyclic
√
quadrilateral. By Ptolemy’s theorem, we have EF · 2 37 = (28/5) · 12 +
2 · (54/5). Thus EF = 6 537 as desired.
The latter case is similar.

8. [7] Triangle ABC has side lengths AB = 231, BC = 160, and AC = 281. Point D is constructed on
the opposite side of line AC as point B such that AD = 178 and CD = 153. Compute the distance
from B to the midpoint of segment AD.
Answer: 208

Solution: Note that ∠ABC is right since

BC 2 = 1602 = 50 · 512 = (AC − AB) · (AC + AB) = AC 2 − AB 2 .

Construct point B 0 such that ABCB 0 is a rectangle, and construct D0 on segment B 0 C such that
AD = AD0 . Then

B 0 D02 = AD02 − AB 02 = AD2 − BC 2 = (AD − BC)(AD + BC) = 18 · 338 = 782 .

It follows that CD0 = B 0 C − B 0 D0 = 153 = CD; thus, points D and D0 coincide, and AB k CD. Let
M denote the midpoint of segment AD, and denote the orthogonal projections M to lines AB and BC
by P and Q respectively. Then Q is the midpoint of BC and AP = 39, so that P B = AB − AP = 192
and p p
BM = P Q = 802 + 1922 = 16 52 + 122 = 208.

9. [7] Let ABC be a triangle with AB = 16 and AC = 5. Suppose the bisectors of angles ∠ABC and
∠BCA meet at point P in the triangle’s interior. Given that AP = 4, compute BC.
Answer: 14

Solution: As the incenter of triangle ABC, point P has many properties. Extend AP past P to its
intersection with the circumcircle of triangle ABC, and call this intersection M. Now observe that

∠P BM = ∠P BC + ∠CBM = ∠P BC + ∠CAM = β + α = 90 − γ,

where α, β, and γ are the half-angles of triangle ABC. Since

∠BM P = ∠BM A = ∠BCA = 2γ,

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 it follows that BM = M P = CM. Let Q denote the intersection of AM and BC, and observe that
4AQB ∼ 4CQM and 4AQC ∼ 4BQM ; some easy algebra gives

AM/BC = (AB · AC + BM · CM )/(AC · CM + AB · BM ).

Writing (a, b, c, d, x) = (BC, AC, AB, M P, AP ), this is (x + d)/a = (bc + d2 )/((b + c)d). Ptolemy’s
theorem applied to ABCD gives a(d + x) = d(b + c). Multiplying the two gives (d + x)2 = bc + d2 . We
easily solve for d = (bc − x2 )/(2x) = 8 and a = d(b + c)/(d + x) = 14.

10. [8] Points A and B lie on circle ω. Point P lies on the extension of segment AB past B. Line ` passes
through P and is tangent to ω. The tangents to ω at points A and B intersect ` at points D and C
respectively. Given that AB = 7, BC = 2, and AD = 3, compute BP.
Answer: 9

Solution: Say that ` be tangent to ω at point T. Observing equal tangents, write

CD = CT + DT = BC + AD = 5.

Let the tangents to ω at A and B intersect each other at Q. Working from Menelaus applied to triangle
CDQ and line AB gives
DA QB CP
−1 = · ·
AQ BC P D
DA CP
= ·
BC P C + CD
3 CP
= · ,
2 PC + 5
from which P C = 10. By power of a point, P T 2 = AP · BP, or 122 = BP · (BP + 7), from which
BP = 9.