The student to teacher ratio is 19:1 at a local school and there is a total of 500 students and teachers. How many teachers and how many students are there.

Question

I'm not sure how to begin to set this up since I have two unknowns and not only one.

Answer 1

s = number of students

19/20 = s/500

Cross multiply and solve for s.

Answer 2

let the number of students be 19x
let the number of teachers be x

19x + x = 500
20x = 500
x = 25

There are 19(25) or 475 students
and 25 teachers

check:
total = 25+475 = 500
ratio = 475 : 25 = 19:1

Answer 3

The answer was 280

Answer 4

I thought it wasn’t a multiple choice question?