Question

Metropolitan Middle School has 564 students and 24 teachers. Eastern Middle School has 623 students and 28 teachers. Which school has the lower unit rate of students per teacher?

Answer 1

Eastern Middle School

Explanation:

The final desired answer has the form of ratios – students/teacher. We set up the same ratio for each class, and then compare the two values.
`(564/24) and (623/28)` We can solve this numerically for a decimal answer, or “cross multiply” by the denominators to get equivalent values of students per teacher.

Direct method: 564/24 = 22.56 students/teacher 623/28 = 22.25 students/teacher

Fractional method: `(564/24) * (28/28) = (15792/672)`

and `(623/28) * (24/24) = (14952/672)`

In each case we obtain the same conclusion that the Eastern Middle School has a very slight lower unit rate.