Question

Suzette and Margo want to prepare crêpes for all of the students in their French class. A recipe makes 20 crêpes with a certain amount of flour, milk, and 2 eggs. The girls already know that they have plenty of flour and milk to make 50 crêpes, but they need to determine the number of eggs they will need for the recipe because they are not sure they have enough.

a. Considering the amount of eggs necessary to make the crêpes, what is the constant of proportionality?
b. What does the constant or proportionality mean in the context of this problem?
c. How many eggs are needed to make 50 crêpes?

Answer 1

a. The answer to the question "what is the constant of proportionality?" is 10.

b. The answer to the question "What does the constant or proportionality mean in the context of this problem?" is that it is the amount of crêpes you'll prepare.

c. The answer to the question "How many eggs are needed to make 50 crêpes?" is 5 eggs.

Explanation:

a. If you need 2 eggs to prepare 20 crêpes, that means that you need to divide 20 by 2 in order to know how many crêpes will you prepare with 1 egg. Then, the result is 10, that means that the proportionality equation will be Y=10X, where Y is the amount of crêpes you'll prepare, and X the amount of eggs you need or have.

b. The constant of proportionality means that you'll have 10 times more crêpes per egg you use in the recipe.

c. Having in mind that the equation is Y=10X, we need to replace Y with 50 because it is the final amount of crêpes needed. Then, you need to move the constant 10 to divide the 50. In that way, you'll have the result that is the number of eggs you'll need to prepare your desired amount of crêpes. In conclusion, 50 divided by 10 is equal to 5, that means you'll need 5 eggs to prepare 50 crêpes.