Question

A regular octagon is formed by cutting an isosceles right triangle from each of the corners of a square with sides of length $2000.$ What is the length of each side of the octagon?

$\dfrac13(2000)$

$2000(\sqrt2-1)$

$2000(2-\sqrt2)$

$1000$

$1000\sqrt2$

Answer: B

Concepts:regular polygon special right triangle rationalizing denominator

Difficulty rating: 1580

Solution:

Let each octagon side be $x.$ It is the hypotenuse of each cut isosceles right triangle, whose legs are $\dfrac{x}{\sqrt2}.$

Along one side of the square, two legs and one octagon side give $2\cdot\dfrac{x}{\sqrt2}+x=2000,$ so $x(\sqrt2+1)=2000$ and $x=\dfrac{2000}{\sqrt2+1}=2000(\sqrt2-1).$

Thus, the correct answer is B.

2001 AMC 10 Problem 20

Answer: B

Difficulty rating: 1580

Solution:

Problem 20 in Other Years