Question in-the
In the xy-plane, a circle has center with coordinates . Points and lie on the circle. Point has coordinates , and is a right angle. What is the length of ?
In the xy -plane, a circle has center C with coordinates h , k . Points
Hard-difficulty · SAT Math · Circles — Radius, diameter, circumference, area. Read the question above, select your answer, and check the full explanation below to understand exactly why the correct choice works.
Answer explanation
Choice A is correct. It's given that points and lie on the circle with center . Therefore, and are both radii of the circle. Since all radii of a circle are congruent, is congruent to . The length of , or the distance from point to point , can be found using the distance formula, which gives the distance between two points, and , as . Substituting the given coordinates of point , , for and the given coordinates of point , , for in the distance formula yields , or , which is equivalent to , or . Therefore, the length of is and the length of is . It's given that angle is a right angle. Therefore, triangle is a right triangle with legs and and hypotenuse . By the Pythagorean theorem, if a right triangle has a hypotenuse with length and legs with lengths and , then . Substituting for and in this equation yields , or , which is equivalent to . Taking the positive square root of both sides of this equation yields . Therefore, the length of is .
Choice B is incorrect and may result from conceptual or calculation errors.
Choice C is incorrect. This would be the length of if the length of were , not .
Choice D is incorrect and may result from conceptual or calculation errors.
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