SAT Ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and units Practice Question 1 (Easy)

Question bank / Ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and units

Math · Problem-Solving and Data AnalysisEasy

A bakery's bread recipe uses flour and sugar in a ratio of $3$ cups of flour to $2$ cups of sugar. If a baker uses $12$ cups of flour, how many cups of sugar should the baker use to keep the same ratio?

$6$

$8$

$10$

$18$

Show answer and explanation

Answer: B

Set up a proportion: $\frac{3}{2} = \frac{12}{s}$ . Cross-multiplying gives $3s = 24$ , so $s = 8$ . Equivalently, $12$ cups of flour is $4$ times the $3$ cups in the ratio, so the sugar is $4 \times 2 = 8$ cups.

Choice D comes from flipping the ratio and computing $12 \cdot \frac{3}{2}$ instead of $12 \cdot \frac{2}{3}$ .

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