2 Proportion

2.1 Introduction

Proportion is another way of expressing notions of part and whole. You might say that the proportion of village inhabitants who are children is a quarter, or that the proportion of fruit juice in the punch is two thirds, or that the proportion of sand in the concrete is three quarters.

All these examples involve the fractions , , . Problems involving proportions are best handled by manipulating fractions, generally, by division or multiplication. The task is to decide which fraction to manipulate, in what way, and at what stage!