Question

The ratio of boys to girls in the Science Club is 3.5. If there are 60 girls, how many boys are there?

Answer 1

Answer:

36 boys

Step-by-step explanation:

                                                            3

Please write the ratio as 3:5 or as  --------

                                                             5

Note that 3 + 5 = 8, so that the fraction of boys in the club is 3/8 and that of girls is 5/8.  

How many are in the club altogether?  Let this count be represented by c.  Then (5/8)c = 60.

Multiplying both sides of this equation by (8/5), to isolate c, we get:

c = (8/5)(60) = 96.  Thus, there are 96 Science students altogether.

3/8 of this number are boys.  This comes out to (3/8)(96) = 36 boys.

We could also solve this problem in the following manner:

 3          b

------ = ------- , where b represents the number of boys.

  5        60

Then 5b = 180.  Dividing both sides by 5, we get b = 180/5 = 36 boys