A British Maths Exam Question
GCSE That Stumped The Nation!
In today’s entry, we will solve this GCSE maths exam question from 2022.
Give the problem a go before jumping in for the solution!
Solution
This solution uses basic geometry. To start with, we will construct 3 equilateral triangles as shown below.
If we find the area of the sector using the middle triangle, we will have added two extra bits from the two sectors adjacent to the middle sector.
The extra bits of area are shown in blue. To overcome this, we can add the two equilateral triangles and take away the two sectors. This means we have
Mathematically, this is
Which is
But we want two pieces of area shaded in red, therefore it is
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Happy reading,
Barry 🍩