<p>How do I solve this?</p>
<p>A total of 120,000 votes were cast for 2 opposing candidates, Garcia and Perez. If Garcia won by a ratio of 5 to 3, what was the number of votes cast for Perez?</p>
<p>120,000/8x = 15000, cause 8x is the total amount of votes</p>
<p>x = 15000, and if Perez has 3x of the votes, he has 45,000 votes</p>
<p>well if Garcia had a 5 to 3 ratio, then 5/8 of the votes were for Garcia and the remaining 3/8 of the votes were for Perez. Now just multiply 3/8 x 120000 = 45,000</p>
<p>Consider the 5:3 ratio (8 votes) as a “part” of the total amount of votes. Divide 120,000 by 8, and you get 15,000 “parts”. Multiply that by 3(number of votes per “part” that were designated to Perez) and you get 45,000.</p>
<p>You can also just look at without doing anything. The other answers don’t make sense. 60,000 is 1/2 of 120,000. 30,000 is 1/4. Therefore the answer must be the one in between: 45,000.</p>
<p>(From what I remember of that problem, the other answers with 30, 60, and 80 (?), I might be wrong)</p>