How can you solve a ratio problem?

Answer 1

Here is one example of one way to do it.

You have a ratio of five to one ( 5:1 or 5/1). You need to apply it to a specific situation. You must have five pennies for each nickel in two piles. Pile one has 60 pennies and pile two has 14 nickels.

To find the correct number of coins to complete each pile, you can solve it in this manner if you have an aversion to other ways of doing this. I hope you understand what a ratio is. In this example as in real life, there are five pennies for every nickel.

Pile one, the equation is: 5/1 = 60/N, where N is the number of nickels. This can be read out loud as "Five is to one as 60 is to N". To solve this, take 5 and divide it by 1. The answer is 5. Next take 60 and DIVIDE it by 5. This is 12, your answer: 60 pennies is to 12 nickels as 5 pennies is to 1 nickel. Here we divided because the unknown quantity was on the bottom of the fraction.

Pile Two, the equation is: 5/1 = P/14, where P is the number of pennies. Read this out loud as "Five is to one as P is to 14. To solve this, take 5 and divide by 1. The answer is 5. Next take 14 and MULTIPLY by 5. This is 70, your answer: 70 pennies is to 14 nickels as 5 pennies is to 1 nickle. Here we multiplied because the unknown quantity was on the top of the fraction.