Question

The windshield wiper on the driver's side of a large bus is depicted below.

Arm $\overline{AB}$ pivots back and forth around point $A,$ sweeping out an arc of $60^\circ,$ symmetric about the vertical line through $A.$ The wiper blade $\overline{CD}$ is attached to $B$ at its midpoint and stays vertical as the arm moves. The arm is $3$ feet long, and the wiper blade is $3.5$ feet tall. What is the area of the windshield cleaned by the wiper, in square feet, to the nearest hundredth? (Assume that the windshield is a flat vertical surface.)

$9.68$

$10.14$

$10.50$

$11.32$

$12.00$

Solution:

Put $A$ at the origin. Then $B = (3\sin\theta, 3\cos\theta)$ for $\theta \in [-30^\circ, 30^\circ],$ so the horizontal coordinate of $B$ ranges over $[-1.5, 1.5],$ a width of $3.$ At each horizontal position exactly one vertical blade of height $3.5$ passes through, so by Cavalieri's principle the cleaned area is $3.5 \times 3 = 10.5$ square feet.

Thus, the correct answer is C.

2025 AMC 12B Problem 12

Solution:

Problem 12 in Other Years