A lake contains $250$ trout, along with a variety of other fish. When a marine biologist catches and releases a sample of $180$ fish from the lake, $30$ are identified as trout. Assume that the ratio of trout to the total number of fish is the same in both the sample and the lake. How many fish are there in the lake?

Video solution:

Click to load, then click again to play

Written solution:

Note that $\dfrac{30}{180} = \dfrac{1}{6}.$ This means that a sixth of the fish in the lake are trout, or in other words, the total number of fish is $6$ times the number of trout.

Therefore, there are $6 \cdot 250 = 1500$ fish in the lake.

Thus, B is the correct answer.