If 81% of the team is here and there are 16 team members. How many are missing?

Question

If 81% of the team is here and there are 16 team members. How many are missing?

Answer 1

Let x=number on team

 

Translate:

  "If 81% of the team is here and there are 16 team members"   means

      (81/100)x are here

      (81/100)(16) = 12.96  are here

 

PLZ, DO NOT ROUND THIS NUMBER !!  The 81% has already been rounded !!  With large values you will get an incorrect result by rounding to the nearest person after the percentage has already been rounded.  And, sometimes there is a large range of answers that are possible when the percent has already been rounded.

 

Let's see--

  12/16 = 75%

  13/16 = 81.25%

  14/16 = 87.5%

 

The value 81.25% (for 13 present) has already been rounded down to 81% in the problem statement.  That means that 16-13 = 3 people are missing.

 

 

 

EX-Q:  A high school advertises that 38% of this year’s class of 764 are planning on attending college.  How many grads plan on attending college?

A:  Any of the following:
 Number     Fraction of 764
  287            0.375654
  288            0.376963
  289            0.378272
  290            0.379581
  291            0.38089
  292            0.382199
  293            0.383508
  294            0.384817

Now, (38/100)*764 = 290.32.  Rounding to the nearest person, that’s 290.

Actually, 294 grads plan to attend college.  The 38.4817% was already rounded down.

Answer 2

A percent is a number out of 100.  Therefore, we can write a proportion.

 

81 / 100 = x / 16

 

 

where x is the total of number of members present.  There are 16 members originally on the team.

 

First, we solve for x.

 

Cross-multiply.

 

 

100x = 1296

 

 

Divide both sides of the equation by 100.

 

x = 12.96

 

 

Round to the nearest integer.

 

x = 13

 

 

Number of members missing = 16 - 13

Answer 3

Let t be the total number of team members then 81% of the team can be written

 

.81t = 16

 

solving for t we get

 

t = 16/.81 = 19.75 since we are talking about people lets round up to 20 people

 

If 16 are there that leaves (20-16) 4 members missing.