NandishSS
Quote:
An artist is painting a white circular region on the top surface of a square blue tile that measures 8 inches on a side. If the circle is inscribed in the square, what fraction of the top surface of the tile will be blue?
A. \(\frac{1}{4}\)
B. \(\frac{1}{2}\)
C. \(\frac{\pi}{4}\)
D. \(\frac{(4 – \pi)}{\pi}\)
E. \(\frac{(4 – \pi)}{4}\)
HI
GMATGuruNY ,
EMPOWERgmatRichC ,
MentorTutoring GMATCoachBenAn artist is painting a white circular region on the top surface of a square blue tile that measures 8 inches on a side. Are we finding the circumference outside the square?
Can you please help me with this problem? I'm unable to comprehend the wordings.
The short answer is no, you are not trying to find the circumference of a circle that is larger than the square. How do you know? There are two ways you can tell:
1) The white circle is going to be painted
on the top surface of the blue square tile, not covering up all the blue.
2) The question that follows references the circle being
inscribed in the square, so the square
must be the larger figure. (Otherwise, we would expect the language to be a bit different—e.g., the circle
circumscribes the square or the square is
inscribed in the circle.)
As much as possible, when you get bogged down in the phrasing of a problem, step back and look for small details, clues such as those I have drawn attention to above, to point you in the right direction.
I hope that helps. Thank you for bringing the question to my attention.
- Andrew