All GMAT Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Calculating The Perimeter Of A Polygon
One side of a regular dodecagon has a length of . What is the perimeter of the polygon?
A regular dodecagon is a polygon with twelve sides of equal length, so if one side has a length of , then the perimeter will be equal to twelve times the length of that one side. This gives us:
Example Question #1 : Calculating The Length Of A Diagonal Of A Polygon
The hexagon in the above diagram is regular. If has length 12, which of the following expressions is equal to the length of ?
is a diameter of the regular hexagon. Examine the diagram below, which shows the hexagon with all three diameters:
Each interior angle of a hexagon measures , so, by symmetry, each base angle of the triangle formed is ; also, each central angle measures one sixth of , or . Each triangle is equilateral, so if , it follows that , and .
Example Question #1 : Polygons
The octagon in the above diagram is regular. If has length 8, which of the following expressions is equal to the length of ?
Construct two other diagonals as shown.
Each of the interior angles of a regular octagon have measure , so it can be shown that is a 45-45-90 triangle. Its hypotenuse is , whose length is 8, so, by the 45-45-90 Triangle Theorem, the length of is 8 divided by :
Likewise, .
Since Quadrilateral is a rectangle, .
Example Question #2 : Calculating The Length Of A Diagonal Of A Polygon
Note: Figure NOT drawn to scale.
Which of the following statements is true of the length of ?
The length of is between 21 and 22.
The length of is between 19 and 20.
The length of is between 18 and 19.
The length of is between 17 and 18.
The length of is between 20 and 21.
The length of is between 17 and 18.
By dividing the figure into rectangles and taking advantage of the fact that opposite sides of rectangles are congruent, we have the following sidelengths:
is the hypotenuse of a triangle with legs of lengths 8 and 16, so its length can be calculated using the Pythagorean Theorem:
The question can now be answered by noting that and .
,
so falls between 17 and 18.
Example Question #1 : Calculating The Length Of A Diagonal Of A Polygon
Calculate the length of the diagonal for a regular pentagon with a side length of .
A regular pentagon has five diagonals of equal length, each formed by a line going from one vertex of the pentagon to another. We can see that for one of these diagonals, an isosceles triangle is formed where the two equal side lengths between the vertices joined by the diagonal are the other two sides. If we draw a line bisecting the angle between those two sides perpendicular with the diagonal that forms the other side of the triangle, we will have two congruent right triangles whose hypotenuse is the side length, , and whose adjacent angle is half the measure of one interior angle of a pentagon. Using these two values, we can solve for the length of the opposite side, which is half of the diagonal, so we can them multiply the result by to calculate the full length of the diagonal. We start by determining the sum of the interior angles of a pentagon using the following formula, where is the number of sides of the polygon:
So to get the measure of each of the five angles in a pentagon, we divide the result by :
So each interior angle of a regular pentagon has a measure of . As explained earlier, we can find the length of half the diagonal by bisecting this angle to form two right triangles. If the hypotenuse is and the adjacent angle is half of an interior angle, or , then the length of the opposite side will be the hypotenuse times the sine of that angle. This only gives half of the diagonal, however, as there are two of these congruent right triangles, so we multiply the result by and we get the full length of the diagonal of a pentagon as follows:
Example Question #682 : Problem Solving Questions
Note: Figure NOT drawn to scale.
Refer to the above diagram. What is the length of in terms of ?
Extend sides and as shown to divide the polygon into three rectangles:
Taking advantage of the fact that opposite sides of a rectangle are congruent, we can find and :
is right, so by the Pythagorean Theorem,
Example Question #683 : Problem Solving Questions
Each side of convex Pentagon has length 12. Also,.
Construct diagonal . What is its length?
The measures of the interior angles of a convex pentagon total
,
so
The pentagon referenced is the one below. Note that the diagonal , along with congruent sides and , form an isosceles triangle .
Now construct the altitude from to :
bisects and to form two 30-60-90 triangles. Therefore, ,
and .
Example Question #681 : Problem Solving Questions
The perimeter of a regular hexagon is 72 centimeters. To the nearest square centimeter, what is its area?
This regular hexagon can be seen as being made up of six equilateral triangles, each formed by a side and two radii; each has sidelength centimeters. The area of one triangle is
There are six such triangles, so multiply this by 6:
Example Question #682 : Problem Solving Questions
What is the maximum possible area of a quadrilateral with a perimeter of 48?
A quadrilateral with the maximum area, given a specific perimeter, is a square. Since and a square has four equal sides, the max area is
Example Question #3 : Calculating The Area Of A Polygon
A man wants to design a room such that, looking from above, it appears as a trapezoid with a square attached (shown below). The area of the entire room is to be 100 square meters. The red line shown bisects the dotted line and has a length of 15. How many of the following answers are possible values for the length of one side of the square?
a) 5
b) 6
c) 7
d) 8
Let denote the length of one side of a square. This is also the top of the trapezoid. Let denote the bottom of the trapezoid. Finally, let be the height of the trapezoid. The area of the trapezoid is then while the area of the square is .
We then have the total area as 100, so:
Now we know that the red line has length 15. is the region of this line that is in the trapezoid. What we notice, however, is that the remainder is precisely the length of one side of a square. So or
Rewriting the previous equation:
This is now an equation of 2 variables and we can easily cross out answers by plugging in possible values. What we find is that for , respectively. For we get , which is too small ( must be greater than ). For we get .