Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · MathNet

Print

Macedonian Mathematical Olympiad

North Macedonia geometry

Problem

The circles , intersect at points and . A line through intersects the circles and for the second time at points and , respectively, in such a way that lies outside of , and lies outside of . Let be the point of intersection of the tangents to and drawn through and , respectively, and . The tangent drawn through to intersects in point , and the tangent drawn through to intersects in point . Let and . Show that the quadrilateral is a parallelogram.
Solution
Due to symmetry reasons, it is enough to show that holds.

First we show that the quadrilateral is inscribed. (1 point) Namely, let us notice that lies on the line segment , and and are on different sides of the line . From and , it follows that . (2 points)

Second, we will show that and lie on the same arc which passes through points and . (1 point) For that purpose, we consider two cases:

first case: the point lies on the segment ; let us notice that points and are on the same side of the line . Let denote the intersection of the lines and . We have the sequence of equalities . Then, from it follows that the quadrilateral is inscribed. (1 point)

second case: the point lies on the segment ; this time the points and are on different sides of the line . Again, let be the intersection of and . We have the following sequence of equalities , from where it follows that the quadrilateral is inscribed. (1 point)

Therefore we get , with which we confirm that . (2 points)

Techniques

TangentsCyclic quadrilateralsAngle chasing