Question

The wind blew away 16 of your muffins. That was 8/9 of all of them! How many are left?

Answer 1

Set up a proportion:

8/9/16 = 1/x

Cross multiply:

8/9x = 16

Divide 8/9 to both sides or multiply by its reciprocal, 9/8.

x = 16 * 9/8

x = 144/8

x = 18

So you have a total of 18 muffins, now subtract this from the amount that blew away to find out how many you have left.

18 - 16 = 2

So you have 2 muffins left.