Understand the Ratio of 2:3

This activity is about the ratio 2:3

Example

The ratio 2:3 can be written as follows:

For every 2 cars Josh has, Jaz has 3.

For every 4 cars Josh has, Jaz has 6.

Example

For every __?__ cars Josh has, Jaz has 24.

Answer

We need to work out how many groups of the ratio 2:3 we are dealing with.

In each group, Jaz has 3 cars.  So the number of groups is 24 ÷ 3 = 8.

In each group, Josh has 2 cars.  So in 8 groups, Josh will have 8 x 2 = 16 cars.

The answer is 16.

Or we could do it this way:

We have to do the same thing to both sides of the ratio.

We have the ratio 2:3

We multiplied the 3 by 8 to get 24

So, we have to multiply the 2 by 8 to get 16.

Let's try some questions using either of these methods to find the answer.