This year, 7 fewer students tried out for Lesterville High School's football team than tried out last year. This is a 14% decrease. How many students tried out last year? This year?
Help plz. This doesn't make any sense to me.
If there were x students, we are told that
.14x = 7
x = 50
check:
14% of 50 = 7
so, 43 students tried out this year, a 14% decrease from the 50 last year.
Thank you very much. It makes a lot of sense now. Now I can do the problems that are similar to this.
To find the number of students who tried out for Lesterville High School's football team last year, we'll first calculate the decrease due to the 14% decrease in the number of students who tried out this year.
Let's assume the number of students who tried out last year is x.
According to the information given, this year, 7 fewer students tried out for the team compared to last year. So, the number of students who tried out this year is x - 7.
We're also told that the decrease is 14% compared to last year. We can use this information to set up an equation:
14% of x = x - 7
To solve for x, we first convert 14% to decimal form by dividing it by 100:
14% ÷ 100 = 0.14
Now, we can rewrite the equation:
0.14x = x - 7
Next, we need to isolate the variable x:
0.14x - x = -7
Combine like terms:
-0.86x = -7
To solve for x, divide both sides of the equation by -0.86:
x = -7 / -0.86
x ≈ 8.14
Therefore, approximately 8 students tried out for Lesterville High School's football team last year.
Since we know that this year, 7 fewer students tried out than last year, we can subtract 7 from the estimated number of students who tried out last year:
8 - 7 = 1
Therefore, approximately 1 student tried out for Lesterville High School's football team this year.