High School

1 cup is equivalent to 16 tablespoons.

How many cups are equivalent to 40 tablespoons? (Express your answer as a fraction with a whole number)

Answer :

1 cup is equivalent to 16 tablespoons.

Taking the ratio, 40 cups will be equivalent to,

[tex]\begin{gathered} \frac{1}{16}=\frac{40}{x} \\ x=16\times40=640\text{ tablespoons} \end{gathered}[/tex]

Final answer:

To convert 40 tablespoons to cups, divide 40 by 16 to get 2 cups with 8 tablespoons remaining, which is 1/2 cup. Therefore, 40 tablespoons is equivalent to 2 1/2 cups.

Explanation:

To convert tablespoons to cups, we need to divide the number of tablespoons by the number of tablespoons in one cup. Since one cup is equivalent to 16 tablespoons, we can set up the conversion like this:

40 tablespoons
÷
16 tablespoons/cup
=
2 cups with 8 tablespoons remaining

To express the remaining tablespoons as part of a cup, we divide the remaining tablespoons by the number per cup:

8 tablespoons
÷
16 tablespoons/cup
=
1/2 cup

Adding this to the 2 cups we already have:

2 cups + 1/2 cup = 2 1/2 cups

This means 40 tablespoons is equivalent to 2 1/2 cups.