We want to find how many readers the local newspaper has. To do so, we will use the percent equation.
part = percent * whole
We know that the newspaper has letters to the editor from 40 people, and this number represents 5 % of all the newspaper's readers. Let's draw a bar diagram to represent the problem. In the diagram, r will represent the total number of readers.
Now we will apply the percent equation to the given situation. For simplicity, we can temporarily ignore the units.
part = percent * whole [0.4em] ↓ [0.4em]
40 = 5 % * r
We need to write the percent as a decimal before we can solve the equation that we got. To write a percent as a decimal, we will ignore the percent symbol and move the decimal point two places to the left.
Therefore, 5 % is equal to 0.05.
40 = 5 % * r [0.4em] ↓ [0.4em]
40 = 0.05 * r
Finally, we will solve the equation for r.
