A cafeteria offered two types of milk. 85 cartons total and 40 of them were regular flavor. wha is the ratio of chocolate milk sold to regular milk sold?

Question

I need the steps to how this problem is solved. Thanks

Answer 1

Marla -

 

So the ratio we're looking for is going to be (chocolate milk)/(all milk), simplified. Let's look at our steps for how we would fill in each of these blanks!

 

Hey, look! We already know how many total cartons of milk there are! It's right in the question! Now we know that we're looking for (chocolate milk)/85. Let's figure out how many cartons of chocolate milk we have. 

 

If we have 85 cartons of milk and 40 of them are regular milk, then we have 45 cartons left (85-40=45). Because the question says that there are only two kinds of milk in the cafeteria, we know that all of the 45 cartons we have left MUST be chocolate! 

 

Fill in that blank! 45/85! We are ALMOST done. we have to reduce (or "simplify") the fraction. Right away, I can see that both the numerator (top number) and denominator (bottom number) are divisible by 5! Let's use that as our first step to see if that will simplify the fraction enough. 

 

45/5 = 9

85/5 = 17

 

9/17

 

We cannot simplify this fraction anymore because the denominator is a prime number - we're done!

 

I hope this was helpful, Marla!