yuvarajait wrote:Question : Last year, all registered voters in Kumannia voted either for the Revolutionary Party or for
the Status Quo Party. This year, the number of Revolutionary voters increased 10%, while
the number of Status Quo voters increased 5%. No other votes were cast. If the number of
total voters increased 8%, what fraction of voters voted Revolutionary this year?
The answer says 11/18. I couldn't catch the way its derived. Can someone help explaining this?
This is a weighted average question.
Let R = Revolutionary voters and S = Status Quo voters.
A 10% increase in R is being combined with a 5% increase in S to yield a mixture with an increase of 8%.
We can use alligation, which dictates the following:
The proportion of each element in the mixture is equal to the distance between the percentage attributed to the other element in the mixture and the percentage attributed to the mixture.
Proportion of R = |percentage in S - percentage in mixture| = |5-8| = 3.
Proportion of S = |percentage in R - percentage in mixture| = |10-8| = 2.
Thus, last year R:S = 3:2.
To determine the ratio of R to S this year, we can plug in values for R and S.
Let R last year = 30 and S last year = 20.
R increased by 10% = (1.1)*30 = 33.
S increased by 5% = (1.05)*20 = 21.
R/(R+S) = 33/(33+21) = 33/54 = 11/18.
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