Video Transcript
The pie chart shows the results of a survey on students’ favorite activities at a school. Which two activities make up exactly half of the responses?
We need to use this pie chart to figure out which two activities would make up half of their responses. We need to figure out what exactly half would be on a pie chart. We could divide our pie chart in half like this. This space is half of our pie chart, but it is not two separate activities. We could try again by dividing the pie chart in half, horizontally. Again, we find half of our pie chart, but it’s not showing us which two activities make up half of their responses.
So we need a new strategy. But then, you remember that exactly half can also be represented by 50 percent. We can check to see which two activities add up to 50 percent. Let’s start by adding the library and the drawing responses together. 27 percent of the students liked the library best, and 13 percent of the students liked drawing best. 27 plus 13 equals 40. so that percentage of students that like the library and drawing is 40 percent, which is not exactly half.
So we need to keep looking for another combination. This time let’s check the library and theater. 27 percent of the students said that the library was their favorite; 23 percent of the students said that the theater was their favorite. Now we need to add 27 percent plus 23 percent. 27 plus 23 equals 50 percent. 50 percent is exactly half. This means that the two activities that make up exactly half of the responses are the library and the theater.
