Not enough areas!

Geometry Level 3

Let a trapezium A B C D ABCD have parallel sides A B AB and D C DC . Let the intersection of the interior diagonals A C AC and B D BD be O O . It is known that the area of A O B AOB is 25 and the area of C O D COD is 121. What is the area of A B C D ABCD ?


The answer is 256.

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1 solution

Richard Costen
Sep 5, 2016

A O B C O D since A B C D . \triangle AOB\sim\triangle COD \text{ since }AB\parallel CD. The sides are proportional to the square roots of the areas of similar triangles so let A B = 5 a and C D = 11 a AB=5a \text{ and }CD=11a . Draw a line through O that is perpendicular to AB and CD, meeting AB at E and CD at F. Let O E = h 1 and O F = h 2 OE=h_1 \text{ and }OF=h_2 (Heights of the 2 triangles). Let height of trapezium ABCD be h = h 1 + h 2 h=h_1+h_2 . Then area of A O B = 5 a h 1 2 = 25 a h 1 = 10 area of C O D = 11 a h 2 2 = 121 a h 2 = 22 \begin{aligned} \text{area of }\triangle AOB=& \frac{5a\cdot h_1}{2}=25 & \implies ah_1=10 \\ \text{area of }\triangle COD=& \frac{11a\cdot h_2}{2}=121 & \implies ah_2=22 \end{aligned} Add the two equations to get a h 1 + a h 2 = 32 a ( h 1 + h 2 ) = 32 a h = 32 area of A B C D = 5 a + 11 a 2 × h = 8 a h = 8 × 32 = 256 ah_1+ah_2=32 \\a(h_1+h_2)=32 \\ah=32\\ \text{area of } ABCD=\dfrac{5a+11a}{2}\times{h}\\=8ah=8\times{32}=\boxed{256}

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