Question

Arthur is organising hig collection of DVDs. He has 36 altogether... The ratio of comedy films to action to horror is 4:7:1. How many of each type of DVD does he have?

Answer 1

so based on the ratio, for every 12 DVDs, he has 4 comedy, 7 actions and 1 horror

Answer 2

now, all you need is to figure out how that ratio would change for 36 DVDs instead of 12 DVDs

Answer 3

what?:L, sorry but i'm not the clever type so dont see how i'm going to work it out

Answer 4

alright, what do you get if you divide 36 by 12?

Answer 5

erm 3?:/

Answer 6

yes - so now, the ratio was orignally set for 12 DVDs (7+4+1) - now you just multiply each number in the ratio to get how many DVDs there are exactly - does that make sense?

Answer 7

erm so, you multiply 7 by 36?

Answer 8

no, not quite. the actual number of DVDs, compared to the total number in ratio is 3 times larger (36/12). So try multiplying each number in ratio by 3 then you get actual number

Answer 9

does that make sense?

Answer 10

erm so your saying you multiply (which the "/"?) 4 by 3, 7 by 3 and 1 by 3?:LL

Answer 11

yeah, that should give you the number of DVDs in each categories -

Answer 12

do you understand the process?

Answer 13

yeah, i think so

Answer 14

good to hear - so basically you have to figure out what the ratio is between given sample number and the actual number that you are working with. Then apply that ratio to sample number ratio