Maths Olympiad Prep

Track / Stage 4 / 105 of 340 #365 of 1964

Problem 365

AMC 12 late, AIME early
Geometry Difficulty 4.7 Multiple choice

As shown in Figure 2, in △ABC\triangle A B C, EFE F //BC,S△AEF=S△BCE/ / B C, S_{\triangle A E F}=S_{\triangle B C E}. If S△BBCS_{\triangle B B C} =1=1, then S△CEFS_{\triangle C E F} equals:

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Official solution

5. (C).

Let S△CEF=xS_{\triangle C E F}=x.
Then S△AEF=S△BCE=1−x2,S△ABC=1+x2S_{\triangle A E F}=S_{\triangle B C E}=\frac{1-x}{2}, S_{\triangle A B C}=\frac{1+x}{2}.
Thus, AFAC=S△AEFS△MBC=1−x1+x\frac{A F}{A C}=\frac{S_{\triangle A E F}}{S_{\triangle M B C}}=\frac{1-x}{1+x}.
But EF∥BC,(AFAC)2=S△AEFS△ABC=(1−x1+x)2E F \parallel B C,\left(\frac{A F}{A C}\right)^{2}=\frac{S_{\triangle A E F}}{S_{\triangle A B C}}=\left(\frac{1-x}{1+x}\right)^{2},
and S△AEFS△ABC=1−x2\frac{S_{\triangle A E F}}{S_{\triangle A B C}}=\frac{1-x}{2}, solving for xx yields x=5−2x=\sqrt{5}-2.

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