Carson needs 3 quarts of water to make fruit punch, but has only a 1-cup measuring cup. She knows there are 2 cups in 1 pint, and 2 pints in 1 quart. Use the drop-down menus to explain how Carson can find the number of cups of water she needs to make the punch. Click the arrows to choose an answer from each menu. Starting with the measurement of 2 cups for 1 pint, Carson can Choose… to find that there are Choose… cup(s) in 1 quart. She can multiply this number by Choose… to find that she needs Choose… cups of water
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Correct Answer with Drop-down Selections:
Starting with the measurement of 2 cups for 1 pint, Carson can
multiply to find that there are
4 cup(s) in 1 quart. She can multiply this number by
3 to find that she needs
12 cups of water.
Explanation
Carson is making fruit punch and the recipe requires 3 quarts of water. However, she only has a 1-cup measuring cup. To figure out how many cups she needs to measure out 3 quarts, Carson must convert quarts into cups using the information she has.
She knows that:
- 1 pint = 2 cups
- 1 quart = 2 pints
First, she should determine how many cups are in 1 quart. She starts with the fact that there are 2 cups in 1 pint. Since there are 2 pints in a quart, she can multiply:
- 2 cups/pint×2 pints/quart=4 cups/quart2 \text{ cups/pint} \times 2 \text{ pints/quart} = 4 \text{ cups/quart}2 cups/pint×2 pints/quart=4 cups/quart
So, 1 quart = 4 cups.
Now that she knows 1 quart equals 4 cups, she can determine how many cups are in 3 quarts by multiplying:
- 4 cups/quart×3 quarts=12 cups4 \text{ cups/quart} \times 3 \text{ quarts} = 12 \text{ cups}4 cups/quart×3 quarts=12 cups
Therefore, Carson needs 12 cups of water in total.
Since her only tool is a 1-cup measuring cup, she will need to use it 12 times to measure the required amount of water for the fruit punch.
This process involves two main conversions:
- Pints to quarts, using multiplication.
- Quarts to cups, by applying the same principle of unit conversion and then scaling the result.
Understanding unit conversions is key in both cooking and science. Carson used logical reasoning and multiplication to bridge the gap between what the recipe asked for and the tools she had.
