Quantitive reasoning

Question

The percentage of registered voters who voted in this election was 54% up 20% from last election. What was the percentage that voted at the last elect election??

i got 35%?

Answer 1

This kind of problem gets your brain all mixed up. Let's say 100 people are registered voters. That means (since 54% voted this election) that 54 people voted in this election. Let's let x be the number who voted in the last election. To figure out the percentage increase between last election and this election, we figure out the difference between this election and last (which would be (54 - x) and then we divide by the amount who voted in the last election (which is "x") and that number is 20% (or 0.20). So:

(54 - x)/x = 0.20 (multiply both sides by "x" to get:

54 - x = 0.20x (add "x" to both sides to get:

54 = 1.2x (divide both sides by 1.2 to get:

x = 45

To find the percentage, divide by the total number of registered voters (100) to get 45%

You can accomplish the same thing without assigning the number of registered voters as 100 as follows:

(0.54 - x)/x = 0.20

0.54 - x = 0.20x

0.54 = 1.2x

x = 0.45 = 45%

Answer 2

Close. Percentage numbers are just the same as regular numbers when it comes to adding and subtracting. So 54 is 20 more than what number? Or, to translate it into an equation: 54 = 20 + ?