Question

In a harris? poll, adults were asked if they are in favor of abolishing the penny. among the? responses, 1225 answered? "no," 498 answered? "yes," and 395 had no opinion. what is the sample proportion of yes? responses, and what notation is used to represent? it?

Answer 1

No could be represented as N, Yes can be Y, and X can be neither.  You have to first see how many people they asked in total.  So add 1225, 498, and 395.  You get 2118.  So that would be the bottom number on all the fractions.

No would be 1225/2118

Yes would be 498/2118

Neither would be 395/2118

You have to be sure you'd put like N=1225/2118 and y=498/2118 and x=395/2118

So you only need to solve for yes.  So the other information should have been included so you could get the total number of people who answered, aka "the bottom number"

so yes is 498/2118 and you have to represent it with a number, I chose y.  But usually they like x if there is only one to solve for.

You need to reduce. With such a high number it can be tough.  But I can see right way I can do 2.

498 divided by 2 is 249.  2118 divided by 2 is 1059.

That makes it y=249/1059

Both of those can reduce by 3.  249 divided by 3 is 83.  1059 divided by 3 is 353.

That makes y=83/353

That's the lowest it can go.