which is better option 50:50 or 100:100?

Question

The example is given under expected value, but I did not understand the example.  Simply put, 100:100 seems like there would be 100% out of 100 chances of winning a scholarship  and 50:50 would be the same, only it would be 50 instead of 100 but still 100%.  Do you see the confuson?

Answer 1

Ratios are often expressed as a split of 100: 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, so the addition of the two numbers doesn't exceed 100. 100:100 moves away from this common standard and implies that there are 200 in the total set. This type of ratio is used in populations, such as in a school of 200 students, 100 are boys and 100 are girls. In this case, the population is usually scaled down to 100 like a percentage, and the ratio is then 50:50. It doesn't mean there are 50 boys and 50 girls it means that 50% are boys and 50% girls. Ratios are often used in surveys when the sum of the ratio numbers is the size of the survey population. For example, 144 people taking part in a survey may result in 35 saying no and 109 saying yes: 35:109. For comparison purposes this may be reduced to a percentage-based ratio: 24.3:75.7. The percentage standard ratio is commonly used because it quickly enables comparisons to be made, rather like converting fractions to a common denominator.