How to find the perimeter of a right triangle - GRE Quantitative Reasoning

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Question

Max left his house and drove 10 miles north to work. From work, he then drove 24 miles east to pick up his daughter from the airport. What is the shortest distance Max can to drive to get back home?

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Answer

It is easiest to solve this using special triangle formulas. From the description, we know this is a right triangle with legs of 10 and 24. 10 and 24 are multiples of the special triangle with side ratio 5 :12 :13.

Since we multiplied 5 and 12 by 2 to get 10 and 24, respectively, we compute the diagonal to be 2 * 13 = 26.

Using the Pythagorean Theorem, a2 + b2 = c2, is also an acceptable approach to solving this problem.

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