What's the value of x in the following proportion?
Hint
Try multiplying both sides by 3x.
Answer
x = 7.5
Example 2
In a large bowl of Halloween candy, the ratio of Snickers to Skittles is 3:2. If there are 36 Skittles in the bowl, how many total candies are in the bowl?
Hint
Set up your ratios as Skittles:Total Candy. Adding the two types of candy gives us 5 total candies, so Skittles:Total Candy = 2:5.
Answer
90 candies
Example 3
What's the value of x in the following proportion?
Hint
Multiply both sides by 3x and watch those denominators vanish.
Answer
13.5
Example 4
Six out of every ten orders at the ice cream shop are for some sort of chocolate ice cream (this includes chocolate chip, triple brownie fudge, chocolate cookie dough, and all other chocolaty deliciousness). If the store sells 1230 cones on a particularly busy weekend, about how many of these are not of the chocolate variety?
Hint
If the ratio of chocolate to total cones is 6:10, then the ratio of not-chocolate to total cones is 4:10.
