Question

Ms. Osborne asks each student in her class to draw a rectangle with integer side lengths and a perimeter of $50$ units. All of her students calculate the area of the rectangle they draw. What is the difference between the largest and smallest possible areas of the rectangles?

$\ 76$

$\ 120$

$\ 128$

$\ 132$

$\ 136$

Solution:

If the side lengths are $l$ and $w$ , then $2l+2w=50$ , so $l+w=25$ .

The smallest possible area comes from side lengths $1$ and $24$ , giving area $24$ .

The largest possible area comes from the closest integer pair with sum $25$ , namely $12$ and $13$ , giving area $156$ .

The difference is $156-24=132$ .

Thus, D is the correct answer.

2008 AMC 8 Problem 17

Solution:

Problem 17 in Other Years