The ratio of boys to girls in a group is 7:3. If there are 40 more boys than girls, work out how many people there are in total.

Answer 1

There will be 100 in total.

There is an algebraic way of doing this but I find some problems are easier if you think through what the problem is actually saying. This is one of those problems.

After the the number of girls is equal to the number of boys, there will be four ratio "units" left. These units equal to 40. Therefore, each of these units would be equal to 10.

4x = 40

x = 10

If this is the case, then for the ratio to be true, each of the other units would be 10 as well. Therefore, this will give a total of 100.