Arithmetic Reasoning Percentage Answer

To teach my ASVAB prep course, I wrote a number of ASVAB study guides.  One of my study guides is The ASVAB Tutor’s Arithmetic Reasoning Study Guide.  The topic of percentages is one of the 15 subtopics I cover in my book.  There are a number of different types of percentage questions on the Arithmetic Reasoning section of the test.  Some types of percentage questions include: sales tax, tip, commission, percent increase, percent decrease, discount, multiple discount, population rate of change, etc.

Yesterday I presented an Arithmetic Reasoning question on percentages.

The question is:

In a group of 80 people, 30 people are male.

What percent are female?

  1. 30%
  2. 50%
  3. 5%
  4. 5%

Do you know how to solve this problem?  To solve this problem, set it up as a proportion.

There are 80 people and 30 are male.  That means there are 50 females.

The proportion should be set up as:

Females/total people = percent/100

50/80 = x/100

Reduce 50/80 to become 5/8.

Cross multiply and solve for x.

5/8 = x/100

8x = 500

Divide by 8.

500 divided by 8 is 62.5%

The answer is Choice D. 62.5%.