a cake recipe calls for 1 2/4 cups of sugar. A caterere has 15 1/2 cups of sugar on hand. how many cakes can he make?
To determine how many cakes can be made with the given amount of sugar, we need to divide the total amount of sugar on hand by the amount of sugar required per cake.
The recipe calls for 1 2/4 cups of sugar, which can be simplified to 1 1/2 cups or 3/2 cups.
The caterer has 15 1/2 cups of sugar, which can also be written as 15 2/2 cups or 31/2 cups.
To find the number of cakes, divide the total amount of sugar by the amount of sugar required per cake:
Number of cakes = Total sugar / Sugar per cake
Number of cakes = 31/2 cups / 3/2 cups
To divide fractions, we multiply the numerator of the first fraction by the denominator of the second fraction, and the denominator of the first fraction by the numerator of the second fraction:
Number of cakes = (31/2 cups) * (2/3 cups)
By canceling out the common factors, the result is:
Number of cakes = 31/3 = 10 1/3 cakes
Therefore, the caterer can make 10 cakes with 1/3 cup of leftover sugar.