Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 3 / 139 of 260 #139 of 1964

Problem 139

AMC 10/12, early questions
Geometry Difficulty 3.4 Multiple choice

In △ABC\triangle ABC, cos⁡(2A−B)+sin⁡(A+B)=2\cos(2A-B)+\sin(A+B)=2 and AB=4AB=4. What is BCBC?

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Official solution

We note that −1-1 ≤\le sin⁡x\sin x ≤\le 11 and −1-1 ≤\le cos⁡x\cos x ≤\le 11.
Therefore, there is no other way to satisfy this equation other than making both cos⁡(2A−B)=1\cos(2A-B)=1 and sin⁡(A+B)=1\sin(A+B)=1, since any other way would cause one of these values to become greater than 1, which contradicts our previous statement.
From this we can easily conclude that 2A−B=0∘2A-B=0^{\circ} and A+B=90∘A+B=90^{\circ} and solving this system gives us A=30∘A=30^{\circ} and B=60∘B=60^{\circ}. It is clear that △ABC\triangle ABC is a 30∘,60∘,90∘30^{\circ},60^{\circ},90^{\circ} triangle with BC=2BC=2 ⟹\Longrightarrow (C)(C).

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty, ordering) added by this project.