Finding unknown ratios
Using a diagram can help to answer ratio problems.
Example
The ratio of boys to girls in a team is \(3 : 4\). There are 8 girls. How many boys are there?
There are 8 girls shared into 4 parts. Each part has \(\frac{8}{4}= 2 \:\text{girls}\).
Fill in the diagram using this information.
Now because the amounts are shared equally between all of the parts, the rest of the table can be filled in.
From the diagram it is clear that the number of boys in the team is \(2 \times 3 = 6\).