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imc

geometry intermediate

Problem

A flagpole is originally meters tall. A hurricane snaps the flagpole at a point meters above the ground so that the upper part, still attached to the stump, touches the ground meter away from the base. What is ?
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
Solution
The broken flagpole forms a right triangle with legs and , and hypotenuse . The Pythagorean theorem now states that , hence , and . (Note that the resulting triangle is the well-known right triangle, scaled by .)
Final answer
E