Quote:
Originally Posted by Meyerland
Since no one else will answer, I'll help you out.
You have to find out if the two triangles are similar. You look at the ratio of two sides and the fact that they are both have matching 90 degree angles. That means they are indeed similar. ( you can also determine this if you know two of the angles, but we don't know that for this problem)
The ratio of AB to CD is 3:9 or 1:3
We know AD is 4. If you just visually look at AE is 1 and ED is 3. It has a ratio of 1:3 too.
The area of AEC = 1/2 base * height (since the base is 1...it comes out to 1/2)
The area of AEC= 1/2 *9
Or 4.5
How To Find if Triangles are Similar
This is a great website for explaining things easily. :-) |
Actually, the correct explanation would be to find the area of the larger triangle ACD, the area of the smaller triangle ECD and subtract the smaller area from the larger area to get the area of the triangle AEC.
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