The teacher said that 1/3 of her class was absent. If there are 24 students in her class, how many were absent?

3 answers

1/3 MULTIPLE BY 24 = 8
Why did you post this question again?

http://www.jiskha.com/display.cgi?id=1460495824
Two interpretations are possible for this question.

1. There are 24 students in the class like you said.
So if 1/3 are missing, then there are 8 missing, just like Ms Sue had in her previous post.

2. With 1/3 missing, there are 24 students in the class, so the 24 students represent 2/3 of the class

(2/3) x = 24
x = 24(3/2) = 36

Conclusion: Either answer would be correct due to the ambiguity of the question.
Poorly worded question !