Question

For another picnic, you want to make hamburgers with pickles, again without having any left over. You need to balance the number of packages of buns (which usually contain 8 buns) with the number of packages of hamburger patties (which usually contain 12 patties) and the number of jars of pickles (which contain 18 slices). Assume that each hamburger needs three pickle slices.
What is the smallest number of packages of buns, packages of patties, and jars of pickles, respectively?

Answer 1

Buns......meat.......pickle
..8/pk....12/pk......18/pk
..4 hamb..12 hamb....6 hamb


The least common denominator for these three numbers is 24. Try it.
pk buns = 24/4 = 6 pk
pk patties = 24/12 = 2 pk
pk pickles = 24/6 = 4 pk

See if that works.
buns: 6 pk x 8 buns/pk x 1 hamb/2 buns = 24 hamburgers.

patties: 2 pk x 12 patt/pk x 1 hamb/patt = 24 hamburgers.

pickles: 4 pk x 18 pick/pk x 1 hamb/3 pick = 24 hamburgers.


Check my work.

Answer 2

The answer above is correct if each burger only needed 1 pickle, but in the question it says it needs 3 each so you have to triple the pickle number.