1999 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 19

Problem

At Central Middle School the 108 students who take the AMC8 meet in the evening to talk about problems and eat an average of two cookies apiece. Walter and Gretel are baking Bonnie's Best Bar Cookies this year. Their recipe, which makes a pan of 15 cookies, lists this items: cups flour, eggs, tablespoons butter, cups sugar, and package of chocolate drops. They will make only full recipes, not partial recipes.

Walter and Gretel must make enough pans of cookies to supply 216 cookies. There are 8 tablespoons in a stick of butter. How many sticks of butter will be needed? (Some butter may be left over, of course.)

Solution

For cookies, you need to make pans. Since fractional pans are forbidden, round up to make pans.

There are tablespoons of butter per pan, meaning tablespoons of butter is required for pans.

Each stick of butter has tablespoons, so we need sticks of butter. However, we must round up again because partial sticks of butter are forbidden. Thus, we need sticks of butter, and the answer is .