The president of the World Bank has asked you to calculate the average population growth rate of Hungary from 1970 to 2010. You know the population in 1970 was about 10.4 million and in 2010 about 9.5 million. The average growth rate is about:
A) 0.2 percent
B) -0.2 percent
C) 98.4 percent
D) 2.7 percent
E) -200 percent

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The formula for calculating average growth rate is:

((Final Population/Initial Population)^(1/Number of Years))-1

Plugging in the values we have:

((9.5/10.4)^(1/40))-1

Simplifying this gives us:

(-0.2/40) = -0.005

Converting this to a percentage gives us:

-0.5%

However, since the question is asking for the average growth rate, we take the absolute value of this percentage to get:

0.5%

Therefore, the correct answer is B) 0.5%.

The President of the World Bank Has Asked You to Calculate