percent problem

Question

There are 250 blue and yellow beads in a box. There are 60 fewer yellow beads than Blue beads in the box. What percent of the beads in the box are yellow?

Answer 1

If there were exactly equal numbers of beads in the box, there would be 125 blue and 125 yellow.

 

Since there are 60 fewer yellow than blue, there are 125 - (60/2) yellow, and 125 + (60/2) blue.

 

125 - (60/2) = 125 - 30 = 95, so there are 95 yellow beads in the box.

 

The percentage of yellow beads is (# of yellow)/(total #) = 95/250 = .38.

 

And if we express the decimal .38 as a percentage by using (100 * .38)%, we get 38% of the box is yellow beads.