scoobydooby wrote:we need niether of the options. it follows from the stem itself that DE is parallel to BC and is equal to 1/2 BC
comes from the mid-point theorem of triangles: a line joining the midpoints of a triangle is parallel to the third side and is half the length of the 3rd side.
Of course we need both of the statements since the question stem only tells us that the points E and D lie somewhere on the respective sides of the triangle.
The statements tell us that both of the points are the midpoints of the sides. Without that information we cannot solve this problem at all!
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Sorry guys, I recheck my figure. It's really parallel! 
