Question

Suppose that the populations of the United States and China both increase by 12 million people in one year. What would be the relative change for each country? Answer to the nearest tenth of a percent (1 decimal place). Make sure that you fill in each answer area before checking "How Did I Do?".

Answer 1

Question:

Suppose that the populations of the United States and China both increase by 12 million people in one year. What would be the relative change for each country? Answer to the nearest tenth of a percent (1 decimal place). Make sure that you fill in each answer area before checking "How Did I Do?".

If you assume that the U.S. population is about 300 million, an increase of 12 million would result in a relative change of Number %.

If you assume that China has about 1 billion people, an increase of 12 million would result in a relative change of Number %.

Answer:

The relative change of the United States and China is 4% and 1.2%, respectively.

Explanation:

Given

Represent population with p. So, we have:

United States

`\triangle p = 12\ million`

`p_1 =300\ million`

China

`\triangle p = 12\ million`

`p_1 =1\ billion`

Required

Determine the relative change for each country

Relative change, C is calculated as:

`C = (\triangle p)/(p) * 100\%`

For United States

`C = (12\ million)/(300\ million) * 100\%`

`C = (12)/(300) * 100\%`

`C = (12 * 100)/(300)\%`

`C = (1200)/(300)\%`

`C = 4\%`

For China

`C = (12\ million)/(1\ billion) * 100\%`

`C = (12)/(1000) * 100\%`

`C = (12* 100)/(1000) \%`

`C = (1200)/(1000) \%`

`C = 1.2\%`

The relative change of the United States and China is 4% and 1.2%, respectively.