3/5 of a schools students play a musical instrument. 3/16 play the trumpet. what fraction of all the students play the trumpet?

Answer 1

(3/16)(3/5) = 9/80

Answer 2

x = student body

3/5*x = number of students who play a musical instrument

3/16*(3/5*x) = number of students who play trumpet

so the fraction of the student body who play trumpet = 9/80*x. So, 9/80 of the total student body play the trumpet. This represents 11.25 percent of the student body.

Answer 3

The problem wants to know what fraction of all students play the trumpet.

We can figure that out by looking at what fraction of those who play any instrument choose the trumpet.

To give you a similar question:

If 2/5 of students wore blue shirts, and 1/3 of those wearing blue wore hats - what fraction of all students wore blue shirts and hats?

That would be 1/3 of 2/5.

That would be multiplication, 1/3 times 2/5.

Note:

To do fraction multiplication you don't need common denominators as you would for fraction addition and subtraction. It won't make the answer wrong, but it would make the answer harder to get and simplify if we first converted these fraction to have common denominators. It's a common mistake among people first learning fractions to always make common denominators but remember that it's only needed for addition and subtraction.

So 1/3 * 2/5. You multiply "straight across", using the numerators (top of both fractions) being 1*2 =2, and the denominators being 3*5=15, for a new numerator and denominator in our answer of 2/15.

Do the same process of fraction multiplication on your problem and should find the answer!

Tip:

In this problem (both yours and my example) we don't need to simplify, but always check to see if the fraction needs simplification at the end of the problem.

Hope that helps!

-Michael