Ratio Fundamentals and the Golden Rule

04 Try it yourself Interactive

Simplify, share out, compare

Set two quantities and a second ratio to compare them against. The walkthrough divides out the highest common factor, shows what happens when you add 1 to each term instead, converts the ratio into a share of the total, and finishes by cross-multiplying against the second ratio.

18 boys and 12 girls, against 7 : 5

3 : 2 · boys are 3/5 · 3 : 2 is larger

Try 2,000 and 500 against 4 : 1 — that is 2 kg against 500 g, and the cross products come out equal because the two ratios are the same comparison.

Press Next to work through it one step at a time.

HCF–

Simplest form–

First’s share–

Larger ratio–

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