Question

Gertrude is making a punch for the holiday party. For every one cup of orange juice, she uses 3 cups of fruit punch. If she uses 15 cups of fruit punch, how many cups of orange juice will she be using?

Answer 1

If Gertrude uses 3 cups of fruit punch for every one cup of orange juice, we can say that the ratio of fruit punch to orange juice is 3:1.

If she uses 15 cups of fruit punch, we can find the amount of orange juice she will use by setting up a proportion:

3/1 = 15/x

where x is the number of cups of orange juice she will use.

To solve for x, we can cross-multiply:

3x = 15

x = 5

Therefore, Gertrude will be using 5 cups of orange juice for the punch.