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Back to 11.3 Standard Divisors, Standard Quotas, and the Apportionment Problem

11.3 Exercise 5

Avg difficulty 2.5

the table contains a list of the five U.S. states with the greatest number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with the population of that state in 2021. Use the information in the table to answer the questions.

The First through Fifth Ranked States by Number of Representatives (sources: https://www.census.gov/popclock/ [state population], https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-House-of-Representatives-Seats-by-State-1787120 [representative seats])
State Representative Seats State Population
(CA) California 53 39,613,000
(TX) Texas 36 29,730,300
(NY) New York 27 19,300,000
(FL) Florida 27 21,944,600
(PA) Pennsylvania 18 12,804,100
  1. What is the ratio of State Population to Representative Seats for each state to the nearest hundred thousand?
  2. What is the ratio of Representative Seats to State Population for each state rounded to seven decimal places?
  3. What is the ratio of Representative Seats to State Population for each state rounded to six decimal places?
  4. Does there appear to be a constant ratio? Justify your answer.

OpenStax Contemporary Mathematics, 11.3 Standard Divisors, Standard Quotas, and the Apportionment Problem, exercise 5

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Adapted from Contemporary Mathematics © 2023 Rice University. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source: Contemporary Mathematics. Imported at revision fa7c1a1.