Use the table to answer the question.

Question

Number of White Balls Selected | Number of Red Balls Selected |
Bowl A | 5 | 15 |
Bowl B | 16 | 4 |
Bowls A and B contains a number of white and red balls. Simon repeatedly selected a ball from both bowls and recorded the results in a table. If there are 36 balls in Bowl A, estimate the number of white balls based on Simon's results.
A. 9
B. 10
C. 18
D. 27

Answer 1

From the table, Simon selected a total of 21 white balls and 19 red balls.

Since Bowl A contains 36 balls in total, and Simon selected 5 white balls and 15 red balls from Bowl A, the ratio of white to red balls in Bowl A is 5:15 or 1:3.

If we assume that Bowl A contains x white balls, then 1x/3 = 5, which means x = 15.

Therefore, Bowl A contains 15 white balls.

Therefore, the estimate of the number of white balls based on Simon's results is 15 + 6 (approximately), which is around 21. However, this is not an option in the given answers.

Since 21 white balls are close to 18 more than 27, an estimate of the number of white balls is around 18. Therefore, the best option is:

C. 18