Question

45% of the beads in a box are blue. if there are 36 blue beads in the box, how many beads are there altogether ?

Answer 1

36÷0.45=80
There are 80 beads altogether

Answer 2

Breaking down the numbers shows that if 45% is 36 beads, then 5% is 4 beads (divide by 9). Then multiply 5% by 20 (to get 100%) and 4 beads by 20 (distributive property) to have 80 beads.