HSPT Math : Percentages
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for HSPT Math
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Percentages
The price of a suit after a 20% employee discount is $240.00. What is the original price?
Deducting a 20% discount is the same as charging 80% of the price, so $240.00 is 80% of the original price, which we call 
The suit originally cost $300.00
Example Question #1 : How To Work With Percentages
Express 
Put the percent over 100 and simplify as follows:
Note: all of these choices are equivalent to 
Example Question #1 : How To Find Percentage
A store normally sells a certain coat for $40. For the holidays it offers a sale where the new price of the coat is now $30. What percent discount is the store selling the coat for?
The coat is $10 cheaper than normal.
Example Question #3 : Percentages
Marshal saves 10% of his paycheck each week. If Marshal earned $652.20 this week, approximately how much money did he save?
The word approximately tells you that you need to estimate to get the answer. $652.20 can round up to $700 because 52.20 is more than half of 100. Since 10% is equal to the decimal 0.10, we multiply 700 by this number in order to find out what 10% of 700 is.
The answer is
Example Question #4 : Percentages
The sales tax rate for a particular locality is 9%. How much will be paid after tax for $154.92 worth of groceries?
Multiply the price of the groceries before tax - $154.92 - by the decimal equivalent of 9% , which is 0.09. Round this tax to the nearest hundredth (cents), then add to the price of the groceries.
Tax:
Price after tax:
Example Question #4 : How To Work With Percentages
Susan has a coupon for 10% off any one item at her favorite department store. There is also a storewide sale of 50% off all purchases.
If Susan wants to by a shirt originally priced at $42, how much will she pay?
$16.50
$37.80
$21.00
$20.00
$18.90
$18.90
The storewide sale discounts the shirt by 50%:
Susan also has the 10% off coupon, so she's really paying 90% of the cost of the shirt:
Example Question #5 : Percentages
Exactly 
The total number of plants has to be divisible by 3. Of the answer choices, the only one that is divisible by 3 is 18. You can check this because numbers that are divisible have the sum of their digits also divisible by 3. For example,
which is divisible by 3, so 18 is divisible by 3.
Example Question #5 : How To Work With Percentages
To get on the ballot for student body president, a student must turn in a petition with the signatures of 3% of the students. If there are 5,319 students, how many signatures must a student get to be on that ballot? (Nearest whole person)
3% of 5,319 can be calculated by multiplying 5,319 by 0.03, the decimal equivalent of 3%:
Multiply 5,319 by 3, then move the decimal point so that two digits are to the right:
so
Rounded to the nearest whole number, this is 160 signatures.
Example Question #6 : Percentages
A laptop computer is on sale for 40% less than the original price. If the original price is $345.00, what is the laptop's current sale price?
First, multiply the original price by the sale percentage:
Then, subtract that amount from the original price to get the sale price:
The laptop's current sale price is
Example Question #7 : Percentages
Helen wants to buy a dress for a party. It is on sale for 37% off. How much does the dress currently costs, if its original price was $45.00?
First, multiply 45 by 0.37:
Then, subtract that amount from 45.00 to find the sale price:
Answer: The dress' sale price is $28.35.
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