Word Problem Help

[Math Test]

Not sure how to do this...At a company fish fry 1/2 in attendance are employees. Employee's spouses are 1/3 of the attendance. What is the percentage of people in attendance who are not employees or employee's spouses?

 

[soroban]

Hello, Math Test!

I don't believe there is a formula for this type of problem.
We can baby-talk our way through it.

At a company fish fry 1/2 in attendance are employees.
Employee's spouses are 1/3 of the attendance.
What is the percentage of people in attendance who are not employees or employee's spouses?

Supoose there are 600 people at the gathering.

Half of then are Employees, the other half are Guests.

. . \(\displaystyle \begin{array}{c}\text{Employees}\\ 300 \end{array} \;\begin{array}{c}\text{Guests}\\ 300 \end{array}\)


. . \(\displaystyle \text{There are: }\tfrac{1}{3} \times 600 \,=\,200\text{ Spouses}\)


Assuming that none of the Spouses are Employees, we have:

. . \(\displaystyle \begin{array}{cccccc}\text{Employees} &&& \text{Guests} \end{array}\)
. . . . \(\displaystyle \begin{array}{ccccccc}300 &&& \text{Spouses} & \text{Other} \end{array}\)
. . . . . . . . . . . . .\(\displaystyle \begin{array}{ccccc}200 && \;100 \end{array}\)


Now you can answer the question . . .