In 2000 the population of West Virginia

Fabia Firoze

Could you please explain why did we choose answer D instead of E?

Thanks!

Oct 19, 2015 • Reply

Cydney Seigerman, Magoosh Tutor

Hi Fabia :)
For Georgia (G) and West Virginia (W), we can express the ratio of populations as: G/W = 9/2. We are told that the population of W is 1.8 million people. From here, we could replace W with 1.8 in our equality and then solve for G by multiplying both sides by 1.8:
* G/1.8 = 9/2
* G = (9/2)*1.8 = 8.1
A population of 8.1 million corresponds to Category E (8-9.9 million), which is Answer D.
It's good to note that instead of carrying out the calculation, we could have used estimation. Observing that the 1.8 is about 2, the population of G should be about 9. And since 1.8 is smaller than 2, G would have to be a little smaller than 9. With that in mind, we can see that Georgia would not fit into Category F (10-11.9 million) but rather Category E (8-9.9 million).

Nov 7, 2015 • Reply