If a recipe calls for 3 lb. of flour to make 24 cookies, how much is needed for 12 cookies?

To determine how much flour is needed to make 12 cookies when a recipe uses 3 pounds of flour for 24 cookies, we can use a proportion based on the relationship between the number of cookies and the amount of flour.

The recipe indicates that 3 pounds of flour yields 24 cookies. To find out how much flour is needed for 12 cookies, we can set up a simple ratio:

The number of cookies we want (12) is half of 24 (which is the number of cookies in the original recipe). Therefore, we can deduce that we need half the amount of flour as well.

Calculating half of 3 pounds gives us 1.5 pounds. Thus, for 12 cookies, 1.5 pounds of flour is required, making this the correct answer. This method not only demonstrates the use of proportions but also reinforces the understanding of scaling recipes appropriately for different batch sizes.