Question

16% of apple in a basket go bad. If there are 42 good apples in the basket, find the total number of apples in the basket?

Answer 1

Denote the total number of apples as X. If 16% are bad, good apples are 100%-16% = 84% or 0.84X apples.
Given that
0.84X = 42
thus
X = 42/0.84 = 50 apples.

Answer: there are 50 apples in the backet.