Jess and Ashley sold cookies at a bake sale. For every 3 cookies Jess sold, Ashley sold 5. Together they sold 48 cookies total. How many cookies did each person sell?

Question

Use a tape diagram to solve.

Answer 1

We know that the total cookies sold is 48. If we use "J" to represent Jess's cookies and "A" to represent Ashely's we can express it mathematically as: J+A=48

For every 3 cookies Jess sells, Ashley sells 5 cookies. This forms a ratio, which can be written in two ways: J/A=3/5 or 3A=5J.

We can solve by substitution: J+A=48 implies that J=48-A. Substitute to get 3A=5(48-A). Solve to find that Ashlee sold 30 cookies while Jess sold 18 cookies.

The video shows the same results using a tape diagram.