The centralville high school cooking club has 12 1/2 pounds of flour with which to make tortillas, there are 3 3/4 cubs of flour in one pound, and it takes about 1/3 cup of flour per tortilla, how many tortillas can they make?

1 Answer
Jun 19, 2018

140

Explanation:

Given conversion ratio is:
#1^("lb")color(white)("d") :color(white)("d")3 3/4" cups"#

But the clube has #12 1/2color(white)()^("lb")# of flour. Thus to change the pounds in the ratio to match the amount available multiply everything in the ratio by #12 1/2#

#12 1/2 (1^("lb")color(white)("d") :color(white)("d")3 3/4" cups")color(white)("d")-> 12 1/2 color(white)()^("lb")color(white)("d") :color(white)("d")46 7/8" cups"#

Now we knoe the amount of flour available is #46 7/8 "cups"#

Each tortilla takes #1/3# cups so the count of tortillas is
#(46 7/8 cancel("cups"))/(1/3 cancel("cups")) = 46 7/8 xx3 = 140 5/8#

You can not make part of a tortilla so the final count is 140