Circle- Shaded Region

To find the area of the shaded region of a figure, subtract the area of the unshaded
region from the area of the entire figure.
Example: 1
What is the area of the shaded region formed by the circle and the rectangle in the

figure?
A)
B)
C) 14
D)
E)
Solution:
To find the area of the shaded region subtract the area of the circle from the area
of the rectangle
area of rectangle - area of circle
3.5
15
The answer is (B)
Example: 2
In the figure below, the radius of the larger circle is three times that of the smaller circle.
If the circles are concentric, what is the ratio of the shaded region’s area to the area of

the smaller circle?

(A) 10:1
(B) 9:1
(C) 8:1
(D) 3:1
(E) 5:2
Solution:
Since we are not given the radii of the circles, we can choose any two positive numbers
such that one is three times the other. Let the outer radius be 3 and the inner radius be
1. Then the area of the outer circle is , and the area of the inner circle is
. So the area of the shaded region is .Hence, the ratio of the area

of the shaded region to the area of the smaller circle is . Therefore, the answer is

(C).
“Birds- Eye” View
Most geometry problems on the SAT require straightforward calculations. However,
some problems measure your insight into the basic rules of geometry. For this type of
problem, you should step back and take a birds-eye view of the problem. The following
example will illustrate
Example: 1
In the figure below, O is both the center of the circle with radius 2 and a vertex of the

square OPRS. What is the length of diagonal PS?

A)

B)

C) 4
D) 2
E)
Solution:
The diagonals of a square are equal. Hence, line segment OR (not shown) is equal to
SP. Now, OR is a radius of the circle and therefore OR = 2. Hence, SP = 2 as well, and
the answer is (D).
Eye-Balling
Surprisingly, on the SAT you can often solve geometry problems by merely eye-balling
the given drawing. Even on problems whose answers you can’t get directly by looking,
you often can eliminate a couple of the answer-choices.
Unless stated otherwise, all figures are drawn exactly to scale. Hence, if an angle looks
like it’s about 90°, it is; if one figure looks like it’s about twice as large as another figure
Example:1
In the figure below, if , then what is the value of y?

A) 20
B) 45
C) 55
D) 75
E) 110
Solution:
By eye-balling the drawing, we can see that y is less than . It appears to be
somewhere between and . But 75° is the only answer-choice in that range.
Hence, the answer is (D).
 Practice Questions

1) In the figure to the right, the area of the shaded region is

(A) 1/2
(B) 2/3
(C) 7/8
(D) 3/2
(E) 5/2
2) In the figure below, QRST is a square. If the shaded region is bounded by arcs of
circles with centers at Q, R, S, and T, then the area of the shaded region

is

A) 9
B) 36
C)
D)
E)
3) In the figure to the right, x is both the radius of the larger circle and the diameter

of the smaller circle. The area of the shaded region is

A)
 B)

C)

D)

E)
4) In the figure below, the area of PQR is 40. What is the area of

QRS?
A) 10
B) 15
C) 20
D) 25
E) 45
5) In the figure below, which one of the following must be true about y ?

(A) y > 37
(B) y < 35
(C) y > 40
(D) y > 42
(E) y > 45