Question

A certain shade of pink paint is made of 4 quarts of red paint for every 3 quarts of white paint. If you only have 1 quart of red paint, how much white paint should you use to make the same shade of pink paint?
Start by setting up a table that could be used to find the amount of white paint you need for every 1 quart of red paint.
Red Paint (qt) White Paint (qt)

4

3

1

?
Good work!
You’re trying to find the amount of white paint you would need for every 1 quart of red paint. What do you need to divide 4 quarts of red paint by to find 1 quart of red paint?
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Red Paint (qt) White Paint (qt)
4 3
1 ?

Answer 1

To find how much white paint you need for 1 quart of red paint, you can set up a proportion based on the existing ratio of red to white paint.

Given the original ratio of red to white is:
- 4 quarts of red paint → 3 quarts of white paint

To find out how much white paint is needed for 1 quart of red paint, you can divide both amounts by 4.

Let's set it up in a table format:

| Red Paint (qt) | White Paint (qt) |
|-----------------|-------------------|
| 4 | 3 |
| 1 | ? |

Now, since you're dividing the amount of red paint by 4 to go from 4 quarts to 1 quart, you also have to divide the amount of white paint by 4:

\[ \text{White Paint for 1 quart of red} = \frac{3 \text{ quarts (white)}}{4} = 0.75 \text{ quarts (white)} \]

Now, we can fill in the table:

| Red Paint (qt) | White Paint (qt) |
|-----------------|-------------------|
| 4 | 3 |
| 1 | 0.75 |

Thus, you should use 0.75 quarts of white paint when you have 1 quart of red paint.