GRE Math : Arithmetic

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Math

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Example Questions

Example Question #1 : Sales Tax

A supermarket sells apples for . If you buy more than  of apples at once, the supermarket will discount the price by .  How much will  of apples cost? Round to the nearest cent.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

In this problem, we are asked to find the price of  of apples.  The original price of apples is stated to be .  That would mean that  of apples would cost . Because the supermarket gives a  discount if you buy  of apples at once, .  Rounded to the nearest cent, 13 pounds of apples would cost .

Example Question #1 : How To Find Simple Interest

Harry borrowed $5000 from his parents at a rate of simple interest of 2% annually and paid it back in full in 30 months. What is the total amount of interest and principal his parents charged him?

Possible Answers:

none of these

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Principal = $5000 (original amount)

Interest = 30 months = 2 years and a half

half a year's interest is

Total interest =

Example Question #1 : How To Find Simple Interest

What is the simple interest rate on an account that accrued  after a year if the original deposit was ?  Round your answer to the nearest hundredth.

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The easiest way to do this is to translate the question into "is / of language."  The question is asking, "What percentage of  is ?"  Remember, is means equals and of indicates multiplication.  "What" means a variable like .  Therefore, we can rewrite our sentence as:

Solving for , we get:

This is %.  Rounding to the nearest hudredth, you get  or .

 

 

Example Question #834 : Gre Quantitative Reasoning

What is the interest rate on an account if an original balance of  rises to  after one year if it is only compounded yearly?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

You can solve this by using the standard formula for simple interest (which is merely a derivative of standard applications of the formulas used for percentages in general).  For our problem this is:

Divide both sides by , but leave the fractions for the time being:

Solve for :

This is:

Which is the same as:

%, or % when rounded.

Example Question #4 : How To Find Simple Interest

If a student borrows $200,000 at an interest rate of 6% compounded annually, when she graduates in 4 years how much money will she owe? Round to the nearest dollar.

Possible Answers:

$252,495

$257,543

$264,432

$265,432

$243,432

Correct answer:

$252,495

Explanation:

This problem requires knowledge of the compound interest formula, .

Where  is the amount of money owed,  is the sum borrowed,  is the yearly interest rate,  is the amount of times the interest is compounded per year, and  is the number of years.  We know that the student borrowed $200,000 compounded annually at a %6 interest rate, therefore by plugging in those numbers we find that after she graduates in 4 years she will owe $252,495.

Example Question #1 : How To Find Percentage

A pair of shoes originally cost $40. It is on sale and now only costs $32. The sale was for what percentage off the original cost?

Possible Answers:

25%

20%

15%

35%

Correct answer:

20%

Explanation:

The difference in cost is $8 (40 – 32). The sale percentage can be found by figuring out this question: 8 is what percentage of 40? 8/40 = 0.20, or a 20% discount. You can check this. 40 * 0.20 = 8.

40 – 8 = 32

Example Question #1 : Other Percentage

A group of five students averaged 85 points on an exam taken out of 100 total points.  If the addition of two additional students raises the group average to 88 points, what is the minimum score that one of those two students can receive?  Assume that 100 is the highest score for the exam.

Possible Answers:

100

95.5

91

93

None of the other answers

Correct answer:

91

Explanation:

If the average score was 85, we know that the total points earned by the 5 students must be 85 * 5 or 425 points.  Upon adding two new scores, we know that the formula for the average will be:

(425 + x) / 7 = 88, where x stands for the combined points earened by the two new students.

Solve for x: 425 + x = 616; x = 191

This means that both students must score 191 points total.  If this is the case, we can assume that one student earns the maximum points, i.e. 100.  This will provide the minimum amount that could be earned by the other: 191 – 100 = 91.

Example Question #2 : How To Find Percentage

A baker is able to sell doughnut holes made from his doughnuts in groups of 6 for $0.50. If he wastes one hole per dozen doughnuts, how much money does he fail to make when selling the holes that can be packaged from 22 dozen doughnuts?

Possible Answers:

$2

$3.33

None of the other answers

$1.83

$11

Correct answer:

$2

Explanation:

Given his waste rate, the baker would waste 22 holes. That is the equivalent 3 2/3 bags; however, since that would leave him with a 1/3 of a bag, the waste really is 4 bags of holes. He therefore fails to make 4 * 0.5 or $2 on this batch of 22 dozen doughnuts and holes.

Example Question #1 : Other Percentage

A college student takes out a loan of $8,000 per Quarter. A college student's average living cost is represented by the chart below.

 

Living_cost_per_quarter

What percentage of the student's loan goes toward housing and tutiton?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The sum cost of housing and tutition is $6199.24. To find the percentage of the loan that equals $6199.24, we can set up the equation:

Percentage = .

We then round the percentage to 77.5%.

Example Question #3 : Other Percentage

On a 30 question test, Mike answered 60% of the first 20 questions correctly. What percent of the remaining 10 questions does he need to answer correctly for his grade on the entire test to be 70%?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

To earn a 70%, Mike needs to correctly answer 21 questions (70% of 30). So far, he has answered 12 questions correctly (60% of 20).

Therefore, on the last 10 questions he needs  correct answers.

 

which equals 90%.

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