70.7k views
2 votes
Elena sells two kinds of pasta, plain and spinach. Both types take 4 cups of flour per batch. The plain pasta uses 2 eggs per batch, and the spinach pasta uses just one. She wants to make both types using all the ingredients she has: 12 cups of flour and five eggs. How many batches of spinach pasta will she make?

A. 4 batches
B. 1 batch
C. 5 batches
D. 2 batches

User Cubed Eye
by
9.5k points

1 Answer

6 votes

Final answer:

Elena can make 3 batches of spinach pasta using 12 cups of flour and 5 eggs since each batch requires 4 cups of flour and 1 egg. The limiting factor here is the amount of flour.

Step-by-step explanation:

The student wants to know how many batches of spinach pasta Elena can make with 12 cups of flour and 5 eggs, given that each batch of plain pasta uses 4 cups of flour and 2 eggs, and each batch of spinach pasta uses 4 cups of flour and 1 egg.

First, we should identify the limiting ingredient, which is the eggs in this case. Since the plain pasta uses 2 eggs per batch and the spinach pasta uses 1 egg per batch, we need to make as many batches of spinach pasta as possible without running out of eggs before using all the flour. We have 5 eggs, so we can make up to 5 batches of spinach pasta (5 eggs needed in total for 5 batches). However, we must also consider the amount of flour we have. With 12 cups of flour and each batch of spinach pasta needing 4 cups, we can only make 3 batches (12 cups ÷ 4 cups per batch). Therefore, we are limited by the amount of flour and can only make three batches of spinach pasta with the ingredients on hand.

User Houssam
by
8.5k points