Question

Mia has a coin collection. A friend called Carmen asks her how many coins she has. Mia says that the 8 coins she has shown Carmen is only 5% of her entire collection. What is the total number of coins in Mia’s collection?

Answer 1

160

Explanation:

This is basically saying "8 is 5% of what number (total)"?

Note: 5% in decimal is 5/100 = 0.05

When translating a word statement into algebra, we need to note that "is" means "equal" and "of" means "multiplication".

Let's translate "8 is 5% of what number (total)" (letting total number of coins be n):

8 = 0.05 * n

solving, gives us:

8 = 0.05*n

n = 8/0.05 = 160

Hence, total number of coins Mia has is 160