Question

Lee mixes corn syrup and molasses together to make a special pancake syrup. She can afford to pay $0.36 per oz for the mix. If corn syrup costs $0.226 per oz and molasses costs $0.74 per oz, how many ounces of each should she mix together to make 24 oz of syrup?

a) 12 oz of corn syrup and 12 oz of molasses.
b) 15 oz of corn syrup and 9 oz of molasses.
c) 8 oz of corn syrup and 16 oz of molasses.
d) 18 oz of corn syrup and 6 oz of molasses.

Answer 1

Lee should mix 18 oz of corn syrup with 6 oz of molasses to make 24 oz of pancake syrup at the correct cost. This is found by setting up and solving a system of equations based on the given prices and desired total cost.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine how many ounces of corn syrup and molasses Lee should mix to make 24 oz of pancake syrup at the price of $0.36 per oz, we can set up a system of equations to solve this cost problem. Let x be the ounces of corn syrup and y be the ounces of molasses. The system of equations will be:

• x + y = 24 (since the total amount of syrup is 24 oz)
• 0.226x + 0.74y = 24 * 0.36 (since the total cost of 24 oz of mix must be $0.36 per oz)

From the first equation, we can express y as y = 24 - x. Substituting this into the second equation gives us:
0.226x + 0.74(24 - x) = 8.64. Solving for x, we find x = 18 and thus y = 6. So, the correct answer is (d) 18 oz of corn syrup and 6 oz of molasses.