Problem Solving

County Amount Recycled Amount Disposed of
A 16,700 142,000
B 8,800 48,000
C 13,000 51,400
D 3,900 20,300
E 3,300 16,200

The table above shows the amount of waste material, in tons, recycled by each of five counties in a single year and the amount of waste material, also in tons, that was disposed of in landfills by the five counties in that year. Which county had the lowest ratio of waste material disposed of to waste material recycled in the year reported in the table?

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E

OG answer explanation simply said to divide "amount disposed of" by "amount recycled" for each county. Great, but that would take way too long, especially under time constraints. Can anyone find an easier, faster way of solving this, please?

acaba007 wrote:County Amount Recycled Amount Disposed of
A 16,700 142,000
B 8,800 48,000
C 13,000 51,400
D 3,900 20,300
E 3,300 16,200

The table above shows the amount of waste material, in tons, recycled by each of five counties in a single year and the amount of waste material, also in tons, that was disposed of in landfills by the five counties in that year. Which county had the lowest ratio of waste material disposed of to waste material recycled in the year reported in the table?

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E

OG answer explanation simply said to divide "amount disposed of" by "amount recycled" for each county. Great, but that would take way too long, especially under time constraints. Can anyone find an easier, faster way of solving this, please?

You should try to approximate the calculation.
For "C" the ratio is (51/13 ) less than 4, while for the others it is greater (142/16, 48/9, 20/4, 16/3).

well, what about starting with an easy ratio among the choices and then approximating the other ones based on that. you can look at it and figure out that some of the ratios will be a lot smaller or larger than some of the other ones and work from there.