Multiple Choice Question

Out of the 32 students in Mr. Martin's class, 18 are boys. If this ratio is proportional to the ratio of students in the school and the number of boys in the school, which of the following proportions would best be used to find the number of students in the school? It is given that there are 468 boys in the school.

1 answer

To solve this problem, we can set up a proportion using the information we have:

Mr. Martin's class has a total of 32 students, with 18 of them being boys. The proportion of boys in Mr. Martin's class can be expressed as:

\[ \frac{18 , \text{boys}}{32 , \text{students}} \]

We denote the total number of students in the school as \( x \). We know there are 468 boys in the school, so we can set up the proportion with the school's boys and students:

\[ \frac{468 , \text{boys}}{x , \text{students}} \]

Since these two ratios are proportional, we can set them equal to each other:

\[ \frac{18}{32} = \frac{468}{x} \]

This ratio expresses the relationship between the number of boys and the total number of students in both Mr. Martin's class and the school.

To summarize, the proportion that would best be used to find the number of students in the school is:

\[ \frac{18}{32} = \frac{468}{x} \]

So the answer is the proportion \( \frac{18}{32} = \frac{468}{x} \).