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Question:


monneyman3
Student
High School - 12th Grade

The longer base of a trapezoid is 97. The line segment joining the midpoints of the diagonals is 3. Find the measure of the shorter base

Clarification: the two diagonals have midpoints  that don't necessarily intersect. The two midpoints are joined by a line spanning the space inbetween them.

97 and 3 are measurements (I had too many characters to say that)

Our teacher gave us this for fun, and it's really been bugging me

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Posted by monneyman3 on Tuesday December 2, 2008 at 5:05 PM and tagged with geometry, math.

Answers:

  1. hala718
    hala718 Teacher

    eNotes Editor

    The segment joining the midpoints of the two diagonals is parallel to the bases and equal to one half of the difference of the bases.

    A = longer base

    B = shorter base

    the segment = (A - B) / 2

    3 = (97 - B) / 2

    6 = 97 - B

    B = 97 - 6 = 91

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    Posted by hala718 on Tuesday December 2, 2008 at 6:28 PM