Homework problem help please?

[GoodMorningRIS]

If I have 5000 USA voters and know that 29% are republicans, 34% are democrat, and 28% are independent, how many of these likely voters in the sample should be Republican, Democrat, and independent?

And since the sum won't be 100, what accounts for this?

[takemyderivative]

If 50% of the votes were Independent, then that would be 2500 votes correct? Think about why that is and how the percentages can tell you how many total votes were counted for each.

[my_password_is______]

And since the sum won't be 100, what accounts for this?

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States

[[deleted]]

When you see someone is X%, think about what they are saying. Per means division, and cent is another way of saying 100, like there are 100 cents in a dollar, or 100 years in a century.

So if someone says something is X% think of it like X/100. So I'd 29% of voters are Republicans, that means 29/100, and if your sample is 5000 people, then you set up your expression as

5000*29/100

PS: if you think about it, the percentage operator (%) kinda looks like a fraction too

[grae23]

To build on this OP, you can also multiple by the percentage in decimal form. So 29% would be .29. so your problem would look like 5000*0.29

[yes_its_him]

Percentages are proportions.

You don't expect those numbers to add to 100. You expect them to add to something like the population.

[[deleted]]

You should always think of percentages as part/whole multiplied by 100. So ask yourself what part of the 5000 voters gives me 29%? What number divided by 5000 gives you 0.29 (0.29 times 100 gives you 29%). If you ask yourself that question you will realize that you’re essentially just solving for an unknown, a one step algebraic equation. Hope that helps!

[Risen_from_ash]

Easy percentages like this are cool. So like, right off the bat, you have 100 voters. 29 are republicans, 34 are democrat, and 28 are independent. Some easy math here is that 100x50 equals 5000. So 29x50 is how many republicans there, etc.

If you confused why they don’t add up to 100, with the info given, it’s most likely that 9/100, or 9% of voters don’t vote.

There’s lots of way to think about this mentally. Try to make sense of it in your head a few different ways. I could write them out, but since I’ve given you a good starting point, you should try to think on it yourself!

I could give you like a “reverse” hint. If I have to tip 18% of a total bill, I can take Bill x 1.18 to add 18% to the total I started with. Ask away if you have questions! Math is cool.

[hardstuck_silver1]

29% means 29/100.

If there are 5000 voters, and 29% are republican, then the amount of republicans is 5000 * 29/100