Question

Two machines at a factory are filling cans of soup. One machine has already filled 180 cans of soup and fills cans at a rate of 15 per minute. The second machine has already filled 210 cans of soup and fills at a rate of 12 per minute. Write an equation to show when the two machines have filled the same number of cans of soup. Use c as your variable

Answer 1

Let c be the number of minutes it takes for the two machines to fill the same number of cans of soup.

The first machine can fills cans at a rate of 15 per minute. Therefore, in c minutes, the first machine will fill 15c cans of soup.

The second machine fills cans at a rate of 12 per minute. Therefore, in c minutes, the second machine will fill 12c cans of soup.

The equation that shows when the two machines have filled the same number of cans of soup is:

15c = 12c