You will extend your developing understanding of ratios to making tables of equivalent ratios to

support solving problems involving ratios. A fruit salad consists of blueberries, raspberries, grapes, and cherries. The fruit salad has a total of 35 pieces of fruit. There are twice as many raspberries as blueberries, three times as many
grapes as cherries, and four times as many cherries as raspberries. Write a ratio to represent the relationships below:
a. Raspberries to blueberries
b. Grapes to cherries
c. Cherries to raspberries

1 answer

To express the relationships among the different types of fruits in the fruit salad, we first need to define some variables based on the information provided.

Let's denote:

  • The number of blueberries as \( B \)
  • The number of raspberries as \( R \)
  • The number of grapes as \( G \)
  • The number of cherries as \( C \)

According to the problem:

  1. There are twice as many raspberries as blueberries: \[ R = 2B \]

  2. There are three times as many grapes as cherries: \[ G = 3C \]

  3. There are four times as many cherries as raspberries: \[ C = 4R \]

Now, we'll substitute these relationships to express everything in terms of \( B \).

From \( R = 2B \):

  • Substitute \( R \) in \( C = 4R\): \[ C = 4(2B) = 8B \]

Next, substitute \( C \) into \( G = 3C \):

  • \[ G = 3(8B) = 24B \]

Now, we can express the total number of pieces of fruit in terms of \( B \): \[ B + R + G + C = B + (2B) + (24B) + (8B) = 35B \]

Since the total number of pieces of fruit is 35: \[ 35B = 35 \] \[ B = 1 \]

Now, we can find the quantities of each type of fruit:

  • \( B = 1 \) (blueberries)
  • \( R = 2B = 2(1) = 2 \) (raspberries)
  • \( C = 8B = 8(1) = 8 \) (cherries)
  • \( G = 24B = 24(1) = 24 \) (grapes)

Now we can write the ratios as follows:

a. Raspberries to blueberries:
\[ \text{Ratio of R to B} = R : B = 2 : 1 \]

b. Grapes to cherries:
\[ \text{Ratio of G to C} = G : C = 24 : 8 \] This can be simplified to \( 3 : 1 \).

c. Cherries to raspberries:
\[ \text{Ratio of C to R} = C : R = 8 : 2 \] This can be simplified to \( 4 : 1 \).

So the final ratios are:

  • a. Raspberries to blueberries: \( 2 : 1 \)
  • b. Grapes to cherries: \( 3 : 1 \)
  • c. Cherries to raspberries: \( 4 : 1 \)