Hi All,
To start, it’s incredibly rare to see a Quant question on the GMAT with so many inter-connected shapes (including a hexagon!), so you shouldn’t worry about this question if you got it wrong the first time you attempted it. You can solve it with a mix of Geometry rules and TESTing VALUES.
With geometric shapes, every time you “add a side”, you increase the total number of degrees by 180. For example….
A triangle = 180 degrees
A square/rectangle = 360 degrees
A hexagon (5-sided shape) = 540 degrees
Etc.
Since we are not given any information about any of the angles in this picture, we can TEST VALUES. Since the hexagon includes 5 angles that total 540 degrees, it’s easiest to make all 5 angles the same…. 540/5 = 108 degrees each.
The sum of the angles on a line add up to 180 degrees, so each angle in each of the triangles that is next to a 108 degree hexagon angle is equal to 72.
That means that each triangle is an isosceles triangle with two 72 degree angles and one angle that equals… 180 – 72 – 72 = 36 degrees. Thus, V = W = X = Y = Z = 36 and the sum of those 5 angles is (5)(36) = 180 degrees.
Final Answer:
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich