Sophia used 1/3 of an ounce of cheese to make 1/12 of a pound of pizza dough. How l many ounces of cheese are needed to make a pound of pizza dough?

1 Answer
Jan 2, 2018

4 ounces of cheese

Explanation:

Note: One pound is the same as 16 ounces

Let's make a ratio of these two statements:

13:112

This is saying that for every 13 of an ounce we have 112 of a pound. Uh-oh, those units don't match. Let's make them match before things get confusing

To go from 13 ounces to pounds, we need to divide by 16. That gives us 148 pounds instead of 13 ounces

So now our ratio is 148:112

We are looking for how much cheese we need when we have a pound of pizza. So, we need to make 112 lbs of pizza into
1 lb of pizza. We do this by multiplying by 12.

BUT we need to do the same on the other side

So now we have 12×148:112×12

or 1248:1

or 14:1

We are almost done! This ratio says that for every 14 pound of cheese we have 1 pound of pizza. However, our final answer is supposed to be in ounces.

So we convert again, multiplying 14 by 16, which gives us 4 ounces.

So, if you have 1 pound of pizza, you must have used 4 ounces of cheese