A bakery uses flour and sugar in a ratio of 5:2 by weight to make a cake batter. If a bake… — GRE General Test

A bakery uses flour and sugar in a ratio of $5:2$ by weight to make a cake batter. If a baker needs to prepare a batch using a total of $28$ pounds of flour and sugar combined, how many pounds of flour are needed?

A
$8$ pounds
B
$14$ pounds
$20$ poundsAnswer
D
$35$ pounds
E
$70$ pounds

Answer

20

pounds

To find the amount of flour, determine the fraction of the total mixture that consists of flour. The ratio of flour to sugar is

5:2

, meaning flour makes up

5

out of

5 + 2 = 7

total parts. Multiplying this fraction by the total weight gives

\frac{5}{7} \times 28 = 20

pounds.

Step-by-Step Solution

Determine the total number of ratio parts

Total ratio parts =

5 + 2 = 7

The ratio

5:2

means that for every

5

parts of flour, there are

2

parts of sugar, giving a total of

7

parts.

Calculate the weight of one ratio part

Weight per part =

28 \text{ pounds} \div 7 = 4 \text{ pounds}

Dividing the total weight by the total number of parts yields the weight of a single part.

Multiply the weight per part by the number of flour parts

Flour weight =

5 \times 4 \text{ pounds} = 20 \text{ pounds}

Since flour represents

5

of the

7

parts, multiplying

5

4

gives the total weight of flour required.

Key Concept

Part-to-Whole Ratios

Estimated Time:45s

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