cupcake word problem

Question

A mother and her daughter frost cupcakes for a birthday party. The mom frosts 3 cupcakes for every 2 cupcakes finished by the daughter. If they frost a total of 80 cupcakes, how many did each person frost?

Answer 1

HI JOn,

The ratio of the number of cupcakes for the mom to that of the daughter is 3 to 2. This represents a total of 5 cupcakes.

Using the larger number of 80 total cupcakes, we can use equivalent ratios to find out how many each frosted:

mom: 3 = x

total 5 = 80

Multiply by 16/16: to find x, the number the mom frosted:

3 • 16 = 48

5 16 80

The mom frosted 48 of the cupcakes. The daughter would have frosted 80 - 48 = 32 cupcakes