Answer:
C. 1000 loss.
Step-by-step explanation:
Let x represent purchase price of each car.
We have been given that a used-car dealer sold one car at a profit of 25 percent of the dealer's purchase price for that car and sold another car at a loss of 20 percent of the dealer's purchase price for that car.
We can represent the car that dealer sold with 25% profit to find purchase price as:
![x+0.25x=20,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=x%2B0.25x%3D20%2C000)
![1.25x=20,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=1.25x%3D20%2C000)
![\frac{1.25x}{1.25}=\frac{20,000}{1.25}](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=%5Cfrac%7B1.25x%7D%7B1.25%7D%3D%5Cfrac%7B20%2C000%7D%7B1.25%7D)
![x=16,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=x%3D16%2C000)
Therefore, the purchase price of 1st car was $16,000.
We can represent the car that dealer sold with 20% loss to find purchase price as:
![x-0.20x=20,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=x-0.20x%3D20%2C000)
![0.80x=20,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=0.80x%3D20%2C000)
![\frac{0.80x}{0.80}=\frac{20,000}{0.80}](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=%5Cfrac%7B0.80x%7D%7B0.80%7D%3D%5Cfrac%7B20%2C000%7D%7B0.80%7D)
![x=25,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=x%3D25%2C000)
Therefore, the purchase price of 2nd car was $25,000.
The total purchase price of both cars would be ![16,000+25,000=41,000](https://tex.z-dn.net/?f=16%2C000%2B25%2C000%3D41%2C000)
The total sale price of both cars
.
We can see that the sale price of both car is less than purchase price by $1000, so the dealer got a loss of $1000.
Therefore, the dealer's total loss, in dollars, for the two transactions combined was 1000 and option C is the correct choice.