Problem:
To promote her school's annual Kite Olympics, Genevieve makes a small kite and a large kite for a bulletin board display. The kites look like the one in the diagram. For her small kite Genevieve draws the kite on a one-inch grid. For the large kite she triples both the height and width of the entire grid.
What is the number of square inches in the area of the small kite?
Answer Choices:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Solution:
The area is made up of two pairs of congruent triangles. The top two triangles can be arranged to form a rectangle. The bottom two triangles can be arranged to form a rectangle. The kite's area is square
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The kite can be divided into two triangles, each with base and altitude . Each area is , so the total area is square inches.
Answer: .
The problems on this page are the property of the MAA's American Mathematics Competitions