All GED Math Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #4 : Proportions And Percentages
The ratio of students to instructors at a prestigious law school is 15:4. If the school employs 120 instructors, then how many students total must it limit itself to enrolling in order to maintain this student-instructor ratio?
Let be the maximum number of students admitted.
For the school to maintain a 15:4 student-teacher ratio with 120 instructors, the ratios and must be equal. Therefore, we solve the proportion statement for :
The maximum number of students it can admit is 450.
Example Question #6 : Proportions And Percentages
The ratio of students to instructors at a prestigious medical school is 25:6. The school employs 90 instructors, and there will be 240 students returning. How many new students must it limit itself to admitting in order to continue to maintain this student-instructor ratio?
Let be the maximum number of students admitted overall.
For the school to maintain a 25:6 student-teacher ratio with 90 instructors, the ratios and must be equal. Therefore, we solve the proportion statement for :
Since 240 spots are already filled by returning students, the medical school can admit up to new students.
Example Question #4 : Proportions And Percentages
Which of the following statements follows from the statement ?
Two ratios are equivalent if and only if their cross-products are equal. We look for the proportion statement whose cross-products are and . Of the four choices, only fits this criterion, so it is the correct choice.
Example Question #5 : Proportions And Percentages
Which of the following statements does not follow from the statement ?
From we can conclude the following:
is true, because the cross-products of a proportion statement are true.
is true, because if two ratios are equivalent, their reciprocals are equivalent.
can be demonstrated to be true as follows:
The fourth statement is false:
, which contradicts the statement that .
Example Question #11 : Proportions And Percentages
Each student at an Asian-studies school is required to take one of three languages - Japanese, Chinese, or Korean. 15% of the students have chosen to take Korean, and three times as many have chosen to take Chinese. No student takes more than one language. What fraction of the students are taking Japanese?
15% of the students are taking Korean, and three times this, or 45%, are taking Chinese. This leaves
of the students taking Japanese. This is
of the students.
Example Question #372 : Numbers And Operations
Each student at a college preparatory school is required to take one of three languages - French, German, or Russian. One fifth of the students have chosen to take Russian; there are twice as many students who have chosen to take French as there are students who have chosen to take German. No student takes more than one language.
What percent of the students are taking German?
One fifth of the students are taking Russian - this is
of the students.
This leaves taking either French or German.
Let be the percent taking German. Then percent are taking French. This means
This is the correct response.
Example Question #11 : Proportions And Percentages
Refer to the above figure. The portions of the rectangle are of equal size.
What percent of the figure is white?
Out of the 20 portions of equal size, 6 are white. We find out what percent 6 is of 20 as follows:
Example Question #14 : Proportions And Percentages
One foot on a large map represents 100 miles of real distance. The distance between Harrison and Tyler is 328 miles. To the nearest inch, what is the distance between the two cities on the map?
One foot, or twelve inches, on the map represents 100 miles - a map inch to mile ratio of . If Harrison and Tyler are inches apart on a map and 328 miles apart in reality, then the map inch to mile ratio is . These ratios must be equal, so we solve for in the proportion statement:
The cities will be 39 inches apart on the map.
Example Question #15 : Proportions And Percentages
Barry currently pays $580 in rent per month. As a reward for referring some new renters, Barry's landlord will decrease his rent by 20% from January through April, after which it will revert back to the current amount. How much rent will Barry pay from January to December?
20% of $580 is ; for four months, Barry's rent will be
Barry will pay for four months and for the remaining eight, for a total of
Example Question #16 : Proportions And Percentages
Julie has a gift card with $500 worth of credit on it. She wants to spend it at the store where she works, because she gets a 30% employee discount; also, the sales tax in the location of the store is 7%.
What is the maximum price, before discount and tax, of the merchandise that Julie can buy with the card?
Let be the price of the merchandise before the discount and the tax is figured in.
Julie gets a 30% discount, so, after discount but before tax, the goods will cost her
.
Including the tax of 7%, she will pay
.
This can be at most $500, so we need to solve for in the inequality
Since we are looking at a maximum, we should round down to the nearest cent, so Julie can buy at most $667.55 worth of merchandise.
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