Alright everyone, so this quarter I am teaching a class on Teaching Elementary Mathematics. At the beginning of our first class this Tuesday, the teacher posed this math problem to us. Now, I must admit, I'm a little rusty in my math skills - the last math class I took was my freshman year of college... that would have been, oh, 2003. eek! I struggled to write out an algebraic equation for this problem, and in the end came up with 27/20 of a person, so I know that's not right. Granted, no one else in the class was confident in their answers or knowing how to solve it either. There was one girl at my table who came up with a solution that seems plausible to me, and I'm curious to see what YOU will come up with. I know there aren't a ton of people who read this blog, but we'll see if I get any answers back.
Here it is:
If 2/3 of all the men in a condiminium complex are married to 3/5 of all the women, what fraction of the people living in the complex are married?
Let me know what you get and how you got it! Happy calculating ;)
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3 comments:
12/19
Assuming no same sex marriages.
12/19ths.
M=Total Men
W=Total Women
2/3M=3/5W=#married men or women
Solve for M in terms of W:
M=9/10W (9 men for every woman)
Fraction of people in complex married:
(Married People)/(Total People)
or
(2/3M+3/5W)/(M+W)
Using M=9/10W
Solves to 12/19ths.
yes! that's what we eventually came up with as well...essentially by creating a common numerator. Smarty pants!
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