Question

There are 12 boys and 16 girls in a classroom. Which represents the simplified ratio of girls to students in the classroom?

Answer 1

 12 boys                       3 boys
------------- reduces to ------------ 
16 girls                         4 girls

We want the simplified ratio of girls to students.  There are 12+16, or 28, students to start with.  We must reduce 16/28, which is the ratio of girls to students before simplification.  This reduces to 4/7 (4 to 7).

Answer 2

We know that there are 16 girls. That is the first part of the ratio. Now, it says girls to students, which mean you have to add up the total of girls and boys together. 12+16=28. There are 28 students in total. Now, you have the ratio of 16:28. But, it says simplified...so we need to divide both sides of the ratio by a number. Let's choose 4 because 4 can go both into 16 and 28. 16/4=4. 28/4=7. So, the simplified ratio of girls to students in the classroom is 4:7.
Hope this helped!