Question

1/8 of the boys at a high school tried out for the football team, 1/6 tried out for the baseball team, and 1/ 12 tried out for the football team and baseball team. What fraction of those who tried out for football also tried out for baseball

Answer 1

2/3

Explanation:

This problem is an overlap problem. First we have that 1/8 total tried out for football team, 1/6 total tried out for baseball team and 1/12 of the students that tried out for both football and baseball team.

So if we want to find those who just tried football, we perform the following operation:

1/8 - 1/12 = 1/24.

So we know that 1/24 tried out just football.

If we want to find all those who tried out just for baseball, we perform the following operation:

1/6 - 1/12 = 1/12

So we know that 2/24 (1/12 multiplied by two) tried for both football and baseball and 3/24 tried out for football, it means that 2/3 of the boys who tried football also tried baseball.