Real-Life Math -- Solution
As a tennis pro, you are helping 2 players improve their skills.
You have a bucket of 125 balls and 2 players.
Situation 1
You
count out and feed Mindy 65 balls to practice her backhand. After she whizzes
through the number, she counts how many are still on her side of the net.
There are 14 balls. What is her success rate on her backhand?
Mindy
has 65 balls fired at her.
She is unsuccessful with 14.
So, she is
successful with 65 - 14 = 51
Percentage:
How many good shots did she return?
51 = successful returns
65 = total
number of balls
percentage = returns
/ total number of balls x 100
percentage = 51 / 65 x 100
percentage
= 0.785 x 100
percentage = 78.5
Mindy returned
her backhand successfully 78.5 percent of the time.
Situation 2
You
gave the rest of the balls in the bucket to Travis. When he finishes practicing
his serve, he has shot 40 balls over the net. What is his success rate on
his serve?
The rest of the bucket = 125 balls - 65 balls
to Mindy
125 - 65 = 60
Travis had 60 balls.
Percentage
40
= number of successful serves
60 = total number of balls
percentage
= serves / total number of balls x 100
percentage = 40 / 60 x 100
percentage
= 0.667 x 100
percentage = 66.7
He served successfully
66.7 percent of the time.
"Players are very aware of their shot percentages,
and want to improve them," says Nita. "As a coach, you have to
be aware of this and be able to approximate percentages on the court."