2017 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 2

Problem

Alicia, Brenda, and Colby were the candidates in a recent election for student president. The pie chart below shows how the votes were distributed among the three candidates. If Brenda received 36 votes, then how many votes were cast all together?

$[asy] draw((-1,0)--(0,0)--(0,1)); draw((0,0)--(0.309, -0.951)); filldraw(arc((0,0), (0,1), (-1,0))--(0,0)--cycle, lightgray); filldraw(arc((0,0), (0.309, -0.951), (0,1))--(0,0)--cycle, gray); draw(arc((0,0), (-1,0), (0.309, -0.951))); label("Colby", (-0.5, 0.5)); label("25\%", (-0.5, 0.3)); label("Alicia", (0.7, 0.2)); label("45\%", (0.7, 0)); label("Brenda", (-0.5, -0.4)); label("30\%", (-0.5, -0.6)); [/asy]$

$\textbf{(A) }70 \qquad \textbf{(B) }84 \qquad \textbf{(C) }100 \qquad \textbf{(D) }106 \qquad \textbf{(E) }120$

Solution 1

Let $x$ be the total amount of votes casted. From the chart, Brenda received $30\%$ of the votes and had $36$ votes. We can express this relationship as $\frac{30}{100}x=36$ . Solving for $x$ , we get $x=\boxed{\textbf{(E)}\ 120}.$

Solution 2

We're being asked for the total number of votes cast -- that represents $100\%$ of the total number of votes. Brenda received $36$ votes, which is $\frac{30}{100} = \frac{3}{10}$ of the total number of votes. Multiplying $36$ by $\frac{10}{3},$ we get the total number of votes, which is $\boxed{\textbf{(E)}\ 120}.$

Video Solution

https://youtu.be/cY4NYSAD0vQ

2017 AMC 8 (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 1	Followed by Problem 3
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25
All AJHSME/AMC 8 Problems and Solutions

The problems on this page are copyrighted by the Mathematical Association of America's American Mathematics Competitions.

Page

Toolbox

Search

2017 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 2

Contents

Problem

Solution 1

Solution 2

Video Solution

See Also