Solving word problems with a table

Last updated: 18 Nov 2008

We reduced the question to the following table.

	% tickets sold	price	% total income
club members	50%	$11
children	10%	$5
non-members		$15	?

We will add a totals row because we are working with percentages and an income column so that we can later work out the percentages for the income.

We can fill in 100% for the totals of the percentages.

	% tickets sold	price	% total income	income
club members	50%	$11
children	10%	$5
non-members		$15	?
total	100%	-	100%

Then it is a matter of filling in as many cells as we can calculate until we have enough information to find the answer.

In this case we know the % tickets sold will sum to 100% so the percentage sold to club members will be

	% tickets sold	price	% total income	income
club members	50%	$11
children	10%	$5
non-members	40%	$15	?
total	100%	-	100%

Now we will work out the amount of income from each group.

The income from each group will be the number of tickets sold multiplied by the price of each ticket.

Since we do not know the total number of tickets sold we can assume that there were 100 tickets because this will make the mathematics easier.

	% tickets sold	price	% total income	income
club members	50%	$11		$550
children	10%	$5		$50
non-members	40%	$15	?	$600
total	100%	-	100%	$1,200

Now that we have the total income and the income from non-members we can find the percentage we need.

	% tickets sold	price	% total income	income
club members	50%	$11		$550
children	10%	$5		$50
non-members	40%	$15	? = 50%	$600
total	100%	-	100%	$1,200

Returning to the question.

50% was contributed by non-members so the answer is C.

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