Percentage

Question

Suppose 11 quarts of pure antifreeze is mixed with 5 quarts of a solution that is 16% antifreeze a.) how many quarts of antifreeze are in the resulting mixture. B.) what percentage of the resulting mixture is antifreeze

Answer 1

Hi Chris,

 

Let's start by figuring out how many quarts of the 5 quart solution are antifreeze.

 

16% of the solution is antifreeze . . . "of" generally means multiply.

 

Convert 16% to a decimal by moving the decimal point 2 places to the left . . 16.0% = 0.16

 

0.16 x 5 quarts = 0.8 quarts of antifreeze

 

Now this goes into an additional 11 quarts of antifreeze, yielding a total of 11.8 quarts of antifreeze in the combined solution.  That's the answer to (a)

 

To figure the percentage of antifreeze in the combined mixture, divide the volume of antifreeze by the total volume:

 

11.8 / 16 = 0.738

 

Convert this to percent by moving the decimal 2 places to the right . . 73.8%. . .answer (b)

 

Dan