Question

The recipe calls for 4 cups of strawberries for every 2 cups of whipped cream. Write this comparison as a ratio.

Answer 1

A ratio is a comparison of two things. It can be written with a colon, like 5:3, as a fraction, like 5/3, or with words, like 5 to 3. Our ratio is strawberries:whipped cream. If we substitute in our numerical values, we get:

4:2

However, this ratio is not simplified. To simplify it, we must divide both the left and right sides of the ratio by their shared greatest common factor, or GCF. To find their GCF, let's look at the factors of both numbers. 4 - 1, 2, 4. 2 - 1,2.

The greatest shared factor is 2, so we need to divide both parts of the ratio by 2, as follows:

4:2 = 4/2 : 2/2 = 2:1

Therefore, your answer is 4:2 or when simplified, 2:1.

Hope this helps!