<p>In a certain class, 1/2 of the male students and 2/3 of the female students speak French. If there are 3/4 as many girls as boys in the class, what fraction of the entire class speaks French?
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According to Kaplan, the correct answer is 4/7, but I got 5/8, I'm pretty confident that I'm right.....right? Anyways.... Help?</p>
<p>Well lets say there are 14 kids in the class. This means that 6 kids are girls and 8 kids are boys. </p>
<p>We can also say that 4 boys speak french and that 4 girls speak french. Therefore 8/14 speak french which equals 4/7. I always like to just use any number instead of dealing with variables.</p>
Hey, can i ask what book you were using or where you got the question from please. I need to find the book to find a question that was in the same section and google can’t help me here. I tried and i don’t want to order every single book. Thanks
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Just for those that want to follow the more general math:
x=# of boys in the class
y=# of students that speak French
Therefore we are looking for y / (total number in class). But the total number in the class is boys plus girls,
so x + 3/4x=7/4x The 3/4 is because they told us there are 3/4 as many girls as boys. So now
y / (total number in class) = y / (7/4x)
Now we know that the number of students that speak French are:
1/2 boys +2/3 girls or 1/2x + 2/3(3/4x) = y = 1/2x + 6/12x = x Therefore y / (7/4x) = x / (7/4)x = 4/7
So the curve ball here is that the number that speak French just happens to be equal to the number of boys in the class, and boys make up 4/7 of the class as well.