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A canning factory is able to produce 4,800 cans of soup in one hour. At this rate, in how many minutes can the canning factory produce 400 cans?
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ACT: Science Question #3

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Passage 1

Various methods are used to estimate the number of microorganisms in a culture. One method utilizes a spectrophotometer to measure the density of organisms in a broth medium. Density indicates the quantity of organisms in a given volume.

In this method, a beam of light is passed through the broth medium. The density of microorganisms in the broth is inversely proportional to the intensity of the light that passes through the broth. A meter is used to indicate the percentage of light transmitted through the medium.

The spectrophotometric data are used to produce a graph, such as the one below, that relates optical density to cell number.



Question:
 Based on the graph, the optical density for a cell number of 
15.0  ×  108  would fall between which two values? 


Choices:
A. between .9 and 1.1
B. between 1.1 and 1.3
C. between 1.3 and 1.5
D. between 1.5 and 1.7

The correct answer is C.

Questions like these just ask you to look up information in a graph.


 The curve is rising very gradually and flattening out at a value 
 around 1.3 between cell counts of  10.0  ×  108  and  12.0  ×  108  . 
 So it will be higher than 1.3, which eliminates (A) and (B), 
 but how high will it go? 
  
 The trend of the curve, if you just continued drawing the pattern 
 with your pencil, indicates that a cell count of  15.0  ×  108  should 
 coincide with an optical density of greater than 1.3 but less than 
 1.5. That's (C). 
 

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