Explore a collection of grade 12 geometry problems with detailed solutions designed to help you think critically and develop problem-solving skills. If a problem seems challenging, don’t give up too quickly—take your time, explore different approaches, and, if possible, collaborate with others. Group discussions can spark new ideas and enhance learning. Remember, the best way to grow is by tackling problems that initially seem difficult!
Problem 1
In the triangle sides and have equal lengths and the measure of angle is equal to . What is the measure of angle where O is the center of the circle?
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Solution:
Triangle has two sides with equal length and therefore is an isosceles triangle with base AC. The measure of angle is given by:
Angle is a central angle and is an inscribed angle and both angles intercept the same arc; hence:
Problem 2
Circles C1 and C2 have equal radii and are tangent to that same line L. Circle C3 is tangent to C1 and C2. is the distance between the between the centers of C1 and C2. Find the distance , from the center of C3 to line L, in terms of and the radii of the three circles.
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Solution:
Let and be the radii of circles C1, C2 and C3 with .
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Let be the distance from C3 to the segment C1, C2. Hence
Apply Pythagoras' theorem applied to triangle C3 O C1
which gives
Using (I), we obtain
Problem 3
All three circles are tangent to the same line and to each other. Circles C2 and C3 have equal radii. Find the radius of C2 if the radius of C1 is equal to 10 cm.
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Solution:
Let , , and be the radii of circles , , and respectively, with .
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Pythagoras' theorem applied to triangle
Substitute: in
Expand, simplify and solve for
Problem 4
is parallel to and the measure of angle is equal to . Find the area of the circle in terms of .
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Solution:
Angles and are vertical and therefore
Since , is the diameter of the circle using the converse of Thales' theorem.
Since is parallel to Triangle and triangle are similar and hence the proportionality of the corresponding sides gives:
Solve for the diameter
Problem 5
The shaded region below is the common area to four semicircles whose diameters are the sides of the square with side length . Find the area of the shaded region in terms of .
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Solution:
Let us split the large square into four small squares as shown in the image.
Let us consider one small square, the bottom left one for example. The square below has a side length of , which is half of the given square. Part of this square is shaded, while the other part is not shaded. Let us find the area of the non-shaded (white) part. The shaded part is a quarter of a disk (circle).
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If we go back to the given shape in problem 5, the total area of the non-shaded part is times the non-shaded area in the image of the small square above, which is given by .
The area A of the shaded part in the shape of problem 5 is given by:
Problem 6
A small circle od radius and a large circle od radius are concentric (have same center). The length of the chord tangent to the smaller circle is equal to mm. What is the area of the ring (shaded area) between the two circles ?
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Solution:
The right triangle in the image has a hypotenuse whose length is , one side and the second side half of the cord whose length is mm.
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Use the Pythagorean theorem
The area of the ring is found by suntracting the area of the small circle from that of the large circle:
\]
The first equation gives
Substitute to obatin the area of the ring
\]
Problem 7
Find , and so that the quadrilateral is a parallelogram with area equal to 80 square units.
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Solution:
The area of a parallelogram may be calculated using the cross product of vectors and as follows:
where and are 3-dimensional vectors with the component equal to zero so that we can perform the cross product .
Each vectors is calculated using the coordinates of the points defining the vector as follows:
Computing the magnitude of the cross product:
The determinant form of the cross product in three dimensions is:
Expanding along the first row:
which gives
Taking the magnitude:
Solving for :
Since point is in the first quadrant, we choose .
Since is a parallelogram, we have:
Thus,
Equating corresponding components:
Solving:
Hence : , and
Problem 8
A right triangle is shown below. Find the lengths , and .
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Solution:
There are 3 right triangles. Use the Pythagorean theorem to write an equation for each triangle:
Solve equation by extracting the square root
Subtract equation form equation , we obtain:
Factor the left side of the above equation:
Substitute in the above equation and simplify to obtain:
Solve the system made up of equations
to find and
Use equation to find
Hence
The values of and are
Problem 9
A rectangle is shown below. Find the length .
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Solution:
Split the given rectangle into 4 other rectangles as shown.
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Pythagoras' theorem applied to the top-left right triangle of side and hypotenuse gives:
Pythagoras' theorem applied to the bottom-left right triangle gives:
Pythagoras' theorem applied to the bottom-right right triangle.
Pythagoras' theorem applied to the top-right right triangle.
Subtracting equations from
Subtracting equations from
Substitute in the above equation to obatin:
Solve for .
Problem 10
The two circles below have equal radii of units each and the distance between their centers is units. Find the area of the shaded region (common region to the two circles).
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Solution:
Because of the symmetry, the shaded region may be considered as made up of two equal (in area) regions. The area of the left half of the shaded region is given by the area of the sector minus the area of the triangle .
Since the distance between the centers is , the length of is given by:
is a right triangle, hence
The area of sector is:
The area of triangle is:
Thus, the area of the shaded region is:
Substitute by and