Question

The local newspaper has letters to the edit from 40 people. If this number represents 5% of all1 of the newspaper's readers, how many readers, r, does the newspaper have?

Answer 1

To find the number of readers, r, that the newspaper has, we can use the information given:

- The number of people who wrote letters to the editor is 40.

- This number represents 5% of all the newspaper's readers.

To find the total number of readers, we can set up a proportion:

(Number of people who wrote letters to the editor) / (Total number of readers) = (Percentage represented as a decimal)

Let's plug in the values we have:

40 / r = 0.05

To solve for r, we can cross multiply:

40 = 0.05 * r

Divide both sides of the equation by 0.05 to isolate r:

r = 40 / 0.05

Simplifying the equation:

r = 800

Therefore, the newspaper has 800 readers.