+239 John surveyed a group of people about their knowledge of rats. To the nearest tenth of a percent, he found that 86.8% of the people surveyed thought rats carried diseases. Of the people who thought rats carried diseases, 45.7% said that rats frequently carried rabies. Since rats do not frequently carry rabies, these 21 people were mistaken. How many total people did John survey?
+9479 Let the num of people John surveyed = p
Let the num of people who thought rats carried diseases = d
Let the num of people who said rats carry rabies = r
86.8% of the people surveyed thought rats carried diseases. In other words...
the num of people who thought rats carried diseases = 86.8% of the num of people John surveyed
d = 86.8% of p
d = 86.8% * p
d = 86.8/100 * p
d = 0.868p
45.7% of the people who thought rats carried diseases said that rats frequently carried rabies.
r = 45.7% of d
r = 0.457d
Since rats do not frequently carry rabies, these 21 people were mistaken. So we know that the num of people who said rats carry rabies is 21. So we know r = 21
r = 0.457d We know r = 21 , so we can substitute 21 in for r .
21 = 0.457d And we know d = 0.868p , so we can substitute 0.868p in for d .
21 = 0.457(0.868p) Now we just have to solve this equation for p .
21 = 0.396676p
21 / 0.396676 = p
52.93993 ≈ p
John surveyed a total of 53 people.
