Question

it takes 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/4 cups of sugar, and 1/2 cup of butter to bake fifteen shortbread cookies. if ramon has 5 cups of flour, 4 cups of sugar, and 1 3/4 cups of butter, how many shortbread cookies can he bake?

Answer 1

Answer:

48 cookies

Step-by-step explanation:

We know that no matter what, we can't go over the limit of how much material we have.

Let's look at the flour. 5/(3/2)=5*2/3= 10/3=3 1/3.

And now the sugar. 4/(5/4)=4*4/5=16/5=3 1/5.

Lastly, the butter. (7/4)/(1/2)=(7/4)*2=14/4=3 2/4=3 1/2.

At this point, we can just say 3 batches or 45 cookies. But what about the fractions?

If a number is greater then another, it doesn't only mean its more, it also means that the smaller number fits into the bigger number at least 1 time. Meaning that the smallest number here, is the sugar, 3 1/5, fits into the others at least once, meaning that, that is the maximum amount of batches that we/Ramon can make.

But we can't forget that the question is asking how many cookies baked, not batches. One batch has 15 cookies. 15*3 1/5=48.

Ramon can make 48 cookies (Yum!).

Answer 2

5 cups of flour will make 5/(1 1/2) x 15 = 50 shortbread cookies
4 cups of sugar will make 4/(1 1/4) x 15 = 48 shortbread cookies
1 3/4 cups of butter will make (1 3/4)/(1/2) x 15 = 52 1/2 shortbread cookies

Therefore, 5 cups of flour, 4 cups of sugar, and 1 3/4 cups of butter will make 48 shortbread cookies.