by RonPurewal Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:30 am
Harish's solution is correct. Make sure that you take note of the following:
(1) The only thing that really matters here is which angle is bigger. As usual, the GMAT is throwing at you something that looks complicated, but in fact is a stand-in for something very simple.
(2) There is absolutely nothing wrong with using your judgment, along with several sketches, to establish the same facts that Harish has established with the Pythagorean theorem. If you simply draw a number of angles between the parallel lines, with the angles getting smaller and smaller, you'll notice that the segments are getting longer and longer. Pattern recognition is a wonderful way to solve problems like this.