Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · harp

Print

smc

geometry senior

Problem

In , . Point is on so that and . Find
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Draw a good diagram! Now, let's call , so . Given the rather nice angles of and as you can see, let's do trig. Drop an altitude from to ; call this point . We realize that there is no specific factor of we can call this just yet, so let . Notice that in we get . Using the 60-degree angle in , we obtain . The comparable ratio is that . If we involve our , we get: . Eliminating and removing radicals from the denominator, we get . From there, one can easily obtain . Now we finally have a desired ratio. Since upon calculation, we know that can be simplified. Indeed, if you know that or even take a minute or two to work out the sine and cosine using , and perhaps the half- or double-angle formulas, you get .
Final answer
D