Question

Totally blanking on how medians work

Answer 1

Answer: FC = 16

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The three medians of this triangle are:

• PF
• RE
• QD

These segments go from one vertex to the midpoint of the opposite side.

The median we'll focus on is PF.

The point C is the centroid of the triangle. It's where the three medians intersect. It turns out that C divides PF such that CF is twice as long as PC

In other words,

CF = 2*PC

This means,

PF = PC+CF .... segment addition postulate

PF = PC+2*PC ... replace CF with 2*PC

PF = 3*PC .... combine like terms

So the median PF is three times the length of its portion PC

We're told that PF = 24

We can then find the following:

PF = 3*PC

24 = 3*PC

3*PC = 24

PC = 24/3

PC = 8

Then we double this to get the length of CF

CF = 2*PC

CF = 2*8

CF = 16

This is the same as FC because the order of the endpoints don't matter when it comes to naming a segment.

The final answer is 16.