Thread: strange question.

in a city live 5 000 inhabitants and only young and old persons.
But 20 % of the young persons say they are old and 10 % of old person say they are young.
The others are that they are. To all inhabitants of this city, we have ask this question: ' Are you old?? ' 34% inhabitants answer yes.
How much this city does count young people? justify

Originally Posted by jadee

in a city live 5 000 inhabitants and only young and old persons.
But 20 % of the young persons say they are old and 10 % of old person say they are young.
The others are that they are. To all inhabitants of this city, we have ask this question: ' Are you old?? ' 34% inhabitants answer yes.
How much this city does count young people? justify

Call x the number of young and y the number of old. We know that x+y=5000 from the first sentence. Now we have to express the way they lie into an equation. If 20% of the young people, or x, say that they are old, how will this change the number from the real number?

Another way to look at it, when asked are you old, who will say yes? 20% of the young people and 90% of the old right?

So (.2)x+(.9)y claim to be old. If 34% claim to be old, that is 34% of 5,000 people or (.34)(5000). Set this equal to the above equation and now you have two variables and two equations.

yes the 20 % and 10 % are incorpored on 34 %