Question

In the contiguous United States, the ratio of states that border an ocean to states that do not border an ocean is 7:9. How many of the states border an ocean

Answer 1

7

Explanation:

Answer 2

21

Explanation:

The contiguous U.S. consist of all states beside Alaska and Hawaii; therefore, there are 48 contiguous U.S. states. However, the ratio given to us only consists of 16 states [7 + 9 = 16]. If we need to expand the ratio, we multiply 16 by 3 to get 48. Thus, we also multiply each of the terms by 3, and the ratio becomes 21:27. Therefore, the number of contiguous U.S. states that border an ocean is 21.