by tommywallach Fri Oct 14, 2011 1:35 pm
Hey Agha,
The easiest way to think about Question #9 is that the hypotenuse is increasing by a factor of 3 when moving from the smallest triangle to the largest triangle, meaning both the base and the height of the triangle are increasing by a factor of 3 (the large triangle and the small triangle are similar, because they share angle D and a right angle, so their third angle must be equal as well).
So the original area a * b = 42, must become 3a * 3b = x, or 9ab = x. 9 * 42 = 378.
Another way you could do it is to drop heights down from point C and from point B. If you do this, you'll see that the triangle is going to divide into 9 separate triangles the exact same size as CDE (the original small triangle).
Make sense?
-t