Calculating the height of a right triangle - GMAT Quantitative

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Question

Right_triangle

Note: Figure NOT drawn to scale

Refer to the above diagram.

Calculate

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Answer

The hypotenuse of the large right triangle is

The area of the large right triangle is half the product of its base and its height. The base can be any side of the triangle; the height would be the length of the altitude, which is the perpendicular segment from the opposite vertex to that base.

Therefore, the area of the triangle can be calculated as half the product of the legs:

Or half the product of the hypotenuse and the length of the dashed line.

To calculate , we can set these expressions equal to each other:

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