The wedding caterer uses the ratio of five pieces of cake for every four guests. If there will be 296 guests, how many pieces of cake will there need to be?

To solve this problem, we need to find out how many pieces of cake are needed for each guest.

Step 1: We know that the ratio of cake to guests is 5:4. This means that for every 4 guests, there are 5 pieces of cake.

Step 2: To find out how many pieces of cake are needed for one guest, we divide the number of pieces of cake (5) by the number of guests (4). So, 5 ÷ 4 = 1.25 pieces of cake per guest.

Step 3: Now that we know how many pieces of cake are needed for one guest, we can find out how many are needed for 296 guests. We do this by multiplying the number of guests (296) by the number of pieces of cake per guest (1.25). So, 296 x 1.25 = 370 pieces of cake.

Therefore, the caterer will need to prepare 370 pieces of cake for the 296 guests.