Question

The residents of a city voted on whether to raise property taxes the ratio of a yes votes to no votes was 5 to 4 if there were 4923 total votes how many yes votes were there ?

Answer 1

2,735 yes votes

Explanation:

First we have too determine the ratio of yes votes to the total number of votes.

We can rationalize thus

If there are 5 yes votes and 4 no votes, the total number of votes = 5+ 4 = 9

So 5/9th of the total votes are yes votes

If the total number of votes = 4923 , number of yes votes = 5/9 x 4923

= 2,735 yes votes ANSWER

We can check to see if our reasoning is correct:

Total number of no votes = 4923 - 2735 = 2188

Yes votes to Nay votes = 2735 : 2188

As a fraction:
2735 / 2188 = 1.25

1.25 = 1 1/4 = 5/4 which is the ratio of yes to no votes and tallies with the question data