Question

At a local department store dresses Typically cost $40. However, due to a special, the dresses are reduced to $36. What percent of the original price has address been reduced to? Round your answer

Answer 1

Answer:

10% no rounding really necessary.  

Step-by-step explanation:

Percent of reduction is basically asking, what do you need to multiply the original by to get the new number.  So it's algebra.

40x = 36

x = 36/40

x = .9

So this means 36 is 90% of 40.  So how much of a percent was taken away?  10.  So that means it is 10% off.  

if it helps you can think of percent increase or decrease like this .  If you have some original value P and want to reduce/ increase by a percent x you would write it out like this.  

P + x*P = P(1+x) where of course x is negative if you are decreasing.  And you want x to be written as a decimal, so 34% would be .34  So in this case  it would look like this.

36 = 40(1-x)

.9 = 1-x

-.1 = -x

.1 = x

So that's another way to get to the answer.