Question

An hour before show​ time, only 170 people are seated for a movie. According to ticket​ sales, 95​% of the people have yet to arrive. How many tickets were sold for the movie​? Explain your thinking.

Answer 1

Let's call the total number of people who will attend the movie "x". We know that 95% of these people have yet to arrive, which means that only 5% have already arrived.

We can set up an equation to represent this situation:

5% of x = 170

To solve for x, we need to isolate it on one side of the equation. We can do this by dividing both sides of the equation by 5% (or 0.05, which is the decimal equivalent of 5%):

5% of x / 5% = 170 / 5%

Simplifying the left side of the equation gives:

x = 170 / 0.05

Evaluating the right side of the equation gives:

x = 3400

Therefore, there were 3400 tickets sold for the movie.