document.write( "Question 571178:  After finding the average of 35 scores, a student carelessly included the average with the 35 scores and found the average of these 36 numbers. The ratio of the second average to the true average was\r
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document.write( "(A) 1 : 1 (B) 35 : 36 (C) 36 : 35 (D) 2 : 1 (E) None of these \n" );
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| Algebra.Com's Answer #368013 by Theo(13342)     You can put this solution on YOUR website! i believe the answer is 1:1 which would be selection A. \n" ); document.write( "there's a couple of ways you can prove this. \n" ); document.write( "the first way is to take any average number and any number of data points that make up that average. \n" ); document.write( "assume you have 556 data points whose average is equal to 375. \n" ); document.write( "these numbers were chosen at random. \n" ); document.write( "if we let x equal the total of the numbers, then we get: \n" ); document.write( "x / 556 = 375 \n" ); document.write( "if we multiply both sides of this equation by 556, then we get: \n" ); document.write( "x = 375 * 556 = 208500 \n" ); document.write( "we have a total of 208500 for 556 data points whose average is 375. \n" ); document.write( "we add the average to this set of data points to get a new total of 208500 + 375. \n" ); document.write( "this is equal to 208875/ \n" ); document.write( "we divide this by 557 data points (556 of the original plus the additional data point of the average) to get: \n" ); document.write( "208875 / 557 = 375 \n" ); document.write( "this is the exact same average that we original got which makes the ratio of the second average to the true average equal to 1:1. \n" ); document.write( "we can also prove this by formula as follows: \n" ); document.write( "the original average is equal to T/N \n" ); document.write( "T is the total of the data points and N is the number of data points. \n" ); document.write( "the second average is equal to T plus the original average divided by N+1 \n" ); document.write( "we know that N is equal to 35 which makes N+1 equal to 37. \n" ); document.write( "our original average becomes T/35 \n" ); document.write( "our second average becomes (T + the original average)/37 \n" ); document.write( "since the original average is equal to T/35, the second average becomes: \n" ); document.write( "(T + T/35)/36 \n" ); document.write( "we can simplify this expression to get: \n" ); document.write( "(36T/35)/36 \n" ); document.write( "this is because T is equivalent to 35T/35 which, when added to T/35, becomes 36T/35. \n" ); document.write( "our second average is therefore equal to (36T/35)/36 \n" ); document.write( "this is the same as 36T/35 * 1/36 which is the same as 36T/(35*36) \n" ); document.write( "since the 36 in the numerator cancels out the 36 in the denominator, we are left with: \n" ); document.write( "second average = T/35. \n" ); document.write( "this is the same as the original average, so the ratio is 1:1. \n" ); document.write( " \n" ); document.write( " |