cans wrote:smackmartine wrote:IMO B
One alternative way to solve this question :
we know that base of the triangle with base (-1,0) and (4,0) has length 5
1) A>3
at A= 4 , area of the triangle is (1/2)*5*A = (1/2)*5*4= 10 < 15, but
at A= 8 , area of the triangle is (1/2)*5*A = (1/2)*5*8= 20 > 15.
Insufficient.
2) The triangle is right.
As soon as you know the triangle is right angled and one of its side is "5", two Pythagorean triplets come in mind.
3-4-5 and 5-12-13 are the only possible options.However, we cannot consider 5-12-13 in this case, because side with length 5 must be hypotenuse and in case of 5-12-13 , 13 is the hypotenuse(the angle between straight lines where (-1,0) and (4,0) converge at point (A,0) should be 90 degrees).
So only option is 3-4-5
As we know that we can calculate the value of "A" or area of the triangle using 3-4-5 triplets so , we should select [spoiler]"B"[/spoiler] i.e sufficient and move on.
We can get A as follows: (no need to do this on test)
(1/2)*5*A = (1/2)*4*3
=> A = 12/5
Some corrections in your solution
1) a) option is A<3 and not A>32
2) b) 3-4-5 is not the only right angled triangle with hypotenuse 5.
and if you solve the question here, the sides will be root(5), 2*root(5) and 5. Thus value of A=12/5 is incorrect.
Nowhere,I used 32 , but yes I used the wrong sign ">" instead of "<" Sorry about that.
So if A< 3 , value could be positive such as 1 or 2 or could be negative such as -10 or -20 . Because we are dealing with absolute values of Y coordinate to calculate area, area could be (1/2)*5*2 =5 <15 (at A=2) or (1/2)*5*|-20| =50 >15 (at A=-20) ,So insufficient.
Typo "So only option is 3-4-15" (I corrected it in the original post)
@cans, I did mention that 5-12-13 is also one triplet but we cannot consider that. Please see the explanation again.
Now, please refer the diagram.
The reason why I used (1/2)*5*A = (1/2)*4*3 because
Area of a triangle = 1/2 * base * height
We can calulate area in two ways :
Considering PQ as base and PR as height ,area = (1/2)* 3* 4
and
Considering QR as base and A as height ,area = (1/2)* 5 * A
Because both are same triangles, the area will also be equal.
Let me know if you still have some doubts.