All GMAT Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #301 : Problem Solving Questions
Two circles in the same plane have the same center. The larger circle has radius 10; the area of the region between the circles is . What is the radius of the smaller circle?
The area of a circle with radius is
.
Let be the radius of the smaller circle. Its area is
. The area of the larger circle is
. Since the area of the region between the circles is
, and is the difference of these areas, we have
The smaller circle has radius .
Example Question #13 : Calculating The Length Of A Radius
A arc of a circle measures
. Give the radius of this circle.
A arc of a circle is
of the circle. Since the length of this arc is
, the circumference is
this, or
The radius of a circle is its circumference divided by ; therefore, the radius is
Example Question #14 : Calculating The Length Of A Radius
The arc of a circle measures
. The chord of the arc,
, has length
. Give the length of the radius of the circle.
A circle can be divided into congruent arcs that measure
.
If the (congruent) chords are constructed, the figure will be a regular hexagon. The radius of this hexagon will be equal to the length of one side - one
chord of the circle; this radius will coincide with the radius of the circle. Therefore, the radius of the circle is the length of chord
, or
.
Example Question #15 : Calculating The Length Of A Radius
If a monster truck's wheels have circumference of , what is the distance from the ground to the center of the wheel?
If a monster truck's wheels have circumference of , what is the distance from the ground to the center of the wheel?
This question is asking us to find the radius of a circle. the distance from the outside of the circle to the center is the radius. We are given the circumference, so use the following formula:
Then, plug in what we know and solve for r
Example Question #311 : Gmat Quantitative Reasoning
Two circles in the same plane have the same center. The smaller circle has radius 10; the area of the region between the circles is . What is the radius of the larger circle?
The area of a circle with radius is
.
Let be the radius of the larger circle. Its area is
. The area of the smaller circle is
. Since the area of the region between the circles is
, and is the difference of these areas, we have
The smaller circle has radius .
Example Question #1 : Calculating Circumference
A circle on the coordinate plane has equation
Which of the following represents its circumference?
The equation of a circle centered at the origin is
where is the radius of the circle.
In this equation, , so
; this simplifies to
The circumference of a circle is , so substitute
:
Example Question #1 : Calculating Circumference
A circle on the coordinate plane has equation
What is its circumference?
The standard form of the area of a circle with radius and center
is
Once we get the equation in standard form, we can find radius , and multiply it by
to get the circumference.
Complete the squares:
so can be rewritten as follows:
,
so
And
Example Question #71 : Circles
On average, Stephanie walks feet every
seconds. If Stephanie walks at her usual pace, how long will it take her to walk around a circular track with a radius of
feet, in seconds?
None of the other answers are correct.
seconds
seconds
seconds
seconds
seconds
The length of the track equals the circumference of the circle.
Therefore, .
Example Question #71 : Circles
A circle on the coordinate plane has equation .
What is its circumference?
The equation of a circle centered at the origin is
,
where is the radius of the circle.
In the equation given in the question stem, , so
.
The circumference of a circle is , so substitute
:
Example Question #2 : Calculating Circumference
Let be concentric circles. Circle
has a radius of
, and the shortest distance from the edge of circle
to the edge of circle
is
. What is the circumference of circle
?
Since are concentric circles, they share a common center, like sections of a bulls-eye target. Since the radius of
is less than half the distance from the edge of
to the edge of
, we must have circle
is inside of circle
. (It's helpful to draw a picture to see what's going on!)
Now we can find the radius of by adding
and
, which is
And the equation for finding circumfrence is
. Plugging in
for
gives
.
All GMAT Math Resources
