Question

A school has a ratio of 3 to 8 for boys to girls. If there are 132 students in the class, how many of them are boys?

Answer 1

36 boys.

Explanation:

The ratio of boys to the total is

3/11. Where did that 11 come from? You add the two components of the ratio to get the ratio of one of the genders to the total.

boys / total = 3 /(8 + 3) = 3/11

3/11 = x / 132 Cross multiply

3 * 132 = 11x Divide by 11

3 * 132/11 = 11x/11 Simplify\

3 * 12 = x

x = 36