abhistud0554 Posted August 22, 2013 Share Posted August 22, 2013 Hi, I was working on this problem from Manhattan GRE Word problem book. The 2nd problem in Page 121. And I can't seem to understand a certain portion of the problem. A Salad dressing requires oil, vinegar and water in the ratio of 2:1:3. If Oliver has 1 cup of oil, 1/3 cup of vinegar and 2 cups of water, what is the maximum number of cups of dressing that he can mix? Solution from the book : 2 cups. Explanation from the book : Try the limits. If Oliver used 1 cup of oil, his recipe would require 1/2 cup of vinegar and 1 1/2 cups of water. He does not have enough vinegar. If he used 1/3 cup of vinegar, he would need 2/3 cups of oil and 1 cup of water, both of which he has. He would then have 2/3 + 1/3 + 1 = 2 cups of dressing. He cannot possible make more dressing than this because he does not have any more vinegar. I don't understand how they calculate the ratios. Meaning if Oliver decided to use 1 cup of oil, how do we determine that he needs 1/2 cup of vinegar and 1 1/2 cups of water and so forth. I know we have to use the given ratio 2:1:3 to arrive at this but I'm not able to correlate to get the solution. Please help me understand. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbd97 Posted August 25, 2013 Share Posted August 25, 2013 I think you already explained it, yet you are not still understanding it, I will explain in a similar way ::: oil: vinegar: water= 2:1:3 total amount of oil : total amount of vinegar : total amount of water= 2x : x : 3x (lets assume) so total amount of mixture possible=2x+x+3x=6x so You can see , maximum amount of vinegar is 1/3 cup, so x=1/3 Now replace x=1/3, so total amount of mixture possible=6x =6*(1/3)=2 (THATS THE ANSWER) STILL CONFUSED? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abhistud0554 Posted August 31, 2013 Author Share Posted August 31, 2013 Thank u so much gbd97..Ur explanation really helped make thing clear.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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