To decorate a cake, you make a shade of orange icing using 24 drops of red food coloring for every 8 drops of yellow. How many drops of yellow food coloring would you need if you use 9 drops of red food coloring?

Question

To decorate a cake, you make a shade of orange icing using 24 drops of red food coloring for every 8 drops of yellow. How many drops of yellow food coloring would you need if you use 9 drops of red food coloring?

Answer 1

To find out how many drops of yellow food coloring you would need, you need to set up a proportion:

24 drops of red / 8 drops of yellow = 9 drops of red / x drops of yellow

Cross-multiplying, we get:

24x = 8 * 9
24x = 72

Dividing both sides by 24, we find:

x = 72 / 24
x = 3

Therefore, you would need 3 drops of yellow food coloring. Answer: \boxed{3}.