How to find the volume of a tetrahedron - SSAT Upper Level Quantitative

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Question

In three-dimensional space, the four vertices of a tetrahedron - a solid with four faces - have Cartesian coordinates .

What is the volume of this tetrahedron?

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Answer

The tetrahedron looks like this:

Tetrahedron

is the origin and are the other three points, which are fifteen units away from the origin on each of the three (perpendicular) axes.

This is a triangular pyramid, and we can consider the base; its area is half the product of its legs, or

.

The volume of the tetrahedron is one third the product of its base and its height, the latter of which is 15. Therefore,

.

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