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I have the following paragraph:

"The contents of a fish tank with 70 fish, of which 10 percent are goldfish, are added to another fish tank with 130 fish, of which 20 percent are goldfish. After the tanks are combined WHAT percentage of the first are goldfish?"

The "what" in question is "WHAT". Should it be kept as "which" to match the previous "which"-'s?

Also, where would one place commas for the sentence?

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  • I believe the question in the quoted text should read "After the tanks are combined WHAT percentage of the fish are goldfish?"
    – toandfro
    Mar 10, 2014 at 21:34
  • @toandfro: Unless of course it's a trick question. Answer: NaN (Not a Number), because the first tank is now empty (all the contexts having been added to the second tank). Mar 10, 2014 at 21:40
  • @FumbleFingers Ha! True. But then the word 'tank' appears to be missing, I guess deliberately so. On another point, I am disinclined to accept "...what percentage of the fish ARE goldfish?" I prefer 'IS', though I am aware that others may disagree.
    – toandfro
    Mar 10, 2014 at 21:46
  • I never know with Americans, who are inclined to be somewhat literal about whether certain "grammatically singular, but logically plural" subjects can reasonably be referenced using a plural verb form. But in this case I think it would be hard to justify singular unless we're treating "goldfish" as a mass noun (as in "What percentage of this cheese is fat?"). Mar 10, 2014 at 21:54
  • Yes, it's that tension between a plural reading of "goldfish" and the singular "percentage" which drives the ARE/IS choice. Ultimately it doesn't matter, both versions are understood to mean exactly the same. Your cheese example takes away that tension.
    – toandfro
    Mar 10, 2014 at 22:08

2 Answers 2

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You should use what.

The "of which" in the text refers to subsets of the 70 (or 130) fish, not the percentages. There is no reason to consider "matching" this usage when asking the subsequent question.

It would only be valid to ask "which percentage" if the text had presented two (or more) percentage values, one of which is the correct answer. In this case, neither percentage specified is the answer.

One would place the commas exactly where they are as cited in the question text. In both cases, "of which X% are goldfish" is a non-restrictive clause (it's still the same tank with that many fish in it, whether the percentage is specified or not). Such clauses are set off with commas, but since the sentence ends after the second such clause, the role of "closing comma" is covered by the full stop.

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This is a question which should be fairly asked in a tutotial paper in Statistics.

If there are buckets of ranges of values, like the discretized categories of a histogram, you would identify a bucket by Which percentage.

If you have to identify the intensity of a continuos percentage mmeasure, you would use What percentage.

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