I'm having some trouble with this SAT Math question:
At a company, there are n more male employees than female employees. If there are k male employees at the company, what fraction of the employees are male, in terms of n and k?
a. 1/(2k+n)
b. k/(k+n)
c. k/(2k-n)
d. n/(2k+n)
e. (k-n)/2k
Can someone walk me through the steps to get to the correct answer?
The first thing you should do is use the variables to model the total number of employees at the company. We already know there are k male employees, so that's all set. How can we represent the number of female employees with the variables we're given? Since there are n more male employees than female employees, the number of female employees can be represented by the expression (k - n). This means that the total number of employees is: k + (k-n) = 2k - n.
Now, let's look back at the original question. We want an expression that represents the fraction of the employees that are male. Since there are k male employees at the company, and there are 2k - n total employees, the fraction we're looking for is k/(2k - n). Choice c is the correct answer!