PSAT Math : Monetary Percentage
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Example Questions
Example Question #21 : Percentage
Ricky works at a shoe shop, and earns $40 in commission for each pair of shoes he sells plus a $100 weekly salary. If Ricky receives no other money, which of the following expressions represents the total dollar amount Ricky receives for a week in which he sells n shoes?
100 + 40n
100 + n
140 + n
140n
40(100 + n)
100 + 40n
If Ricky sells n shoes in a week, he earns $40n in commission. His salary is a constant $100 per week, so his total payout is $100 + $40n.
Example Question #22 : Monetary Percentage
An entrepreneur started a company making floggles. The factory requires $1000 worth of fixed expenses to keep it running every month. She is able to produce one floggle at the cost of $4 and sell one floggle at the cost of $6. If she produces and sells 500 floggles in one month, what is her profit?
$0
$4000
$1000
$3000
$2000
$0
Profit = Income - Expenditures
Income = $6/floggle times 500 floggles = $3000
Expenditures = $1000 + $4/floggle times 500 floggles = $1000 + $2000 = $3000
Profit = 3000 - 3000 = 0
Example Question #23 : Monetary Percentage
You are planning a New Year’s Eve bash. For each person attending, the caterer will charge you $15 for food, $10 for beverages, $5 for service. The band charges $2000 for the entire evening. You also have to pay the venue $2500 to rent the location for the night and $3 for parking for each attendee. If you expect 500 people to attend and you would like to make a $10000 profit for planning the event, how much must each ticket cost?
$60
$53
$42
$33
$62
$62
First determine total cost.
Caterer: Per person = $15 + $10 + $5 = $30 per person
Parking: Per person = $3 per person
Total per person = $33
$33 * 500 people = $16,500
Plus cost of renting venue + band = $2500 + $2000 = $4500
Total (net) cost = $16,500 + $4500 = $21,000
Total (gross) cost = net cost + profit = $21,000 + $10,000 = $31,000
Cost per ticket = Gross cost / # of attendee = $31,000 / 500 = $62
Example Question #2 : How To Find Amount Of Profit
The Widget Company has annual revenues of $150,000. Their expenses over the same time frame was $75,000. What was the percent profit?
25%
50%
75%
60%
30%
50%
Profit = Revenue – Expense
% Profit = $ Profit ÷ $ Total Revenue
% Profit = ($150,000 – $75,000) ÷ $150,000 = 50%
Example Question #25 : Monetary Percentage
Nicki sold 20 albums at $5 each. How many albums should Minaj sell at $4.50 to earn more than Nicki?
19
25
23
24
22
23
The answer is 23. 23*$4.50 = $103.50, which is more than what Nicki earned.
Example Question #26 : Monetary Percentage
During Laura and Anna’s bake sale, 35 brownies, 12 cupcakes and 23 glasses of lemonade were sold. These goods cost $44 for the raw ingredients, and they sold for $79. What is the average profit per item?
$0.35
$1.75
$0.50
$0.70
$0.25
$0.50
Total profit ($35) divided by total items (70) yields the answer of $0.50 profit per item.
Example Question #1 : How To Find Amount Of Profit
Each wooden chair that a carpenter makes requires $20 worth of supplies. He then sells the chairs for $50 each. The carpenter recently discovered a new supplier that would allow him to spend 25% less on supplies. If he doesn't change his selling price, by what percent could the carpenter increase his profit by using the new supplier?
Using $20 worth of supplies and selling the chairs for $50 each, the carpenter is originally making a profit of $30 per chair.
The new supplier would reduce costs by 25% or 1/4. One-fourth of $20 is $5, so the new supplier would be $5 less, or $15.
If the selling price is the same ($50), then the carpenter would now make a profit of $35 per chair, a change of $5.
To calculate percent increase, divide the actual change in profit by the original profit amount, and multiply the result by 100%:
(Actual Change ÷ Original Amount) * 100% = 5/30 * 100% = 500%/30 = 16.7%
Example Question #2 : How To Find Amount Of Profit
A craftsman builds a cabinet. He pays $250 to buy the wood and miscellaneous materials for the cabinet. He spends 20 hours building the cabinet. If he values his time at $40 per hour and expects a profit margin of 50% above labor and materials, how much should he charge for the cabinet?
Total Cost = Material Cost + Labor Cost + Profit
Labor Cost = $40/hour * 20 hours = $800
Profit Margin of 50% = Cost x 0.50 = $1050 x 0.50 = $525
Total Cost = $250 + $800 + $525 = $1575
Example Question #3 : How To Find Amount Of Profit
The cost of manufacturing a single teddy bear is $6.25. A teddy bear company sells 200 bears for $1750. What is the profit percentage per single bear?
40%
28%
140%
60%
72%
40%
First we must find out what the price is for one teddy bear, manufactured by this company. Thus we divide 1750 by 200 and find that each bear costs $8.75. To find out the profit per bear, we divide 8.75 by 6.25 to arrive at 1.4. The bears are thus sold for 140% of what it costs to make them, giving a 40% profit.
Example Question #1 : How To Find The Amount Of Sales Tax
If there is a 10% sale on an item, and then 9% sales tax is applied to that after-sale price, then what is the total cost of the item including tax as a percentage of its pre-sale sticker price?
99%
81.9%
101%
98.1%
99.2%
98.1%
A 10% sale means that the post-sale price of the item is now 90%, or 0.9 of the original cost of the item. We then apply 9% sales tax by multiplying the 0.9 by 109%, or 1.09. 0.9 * 1.09 = .981, so the total cost of the item is 98.1% of the original pre-sale sticker price.
For percentage problems that do not deal with a specific starting number, it is always helpful to plug in 100 for the starting number. Here, we would then have a post-sale price of 90 dollars, and if we calculate the sales tax for the 90-dollar item it would be 90 * 0.09 = $8.10. THis gives us a total cost of 90 + 8.10 = $98.10, or 98.1% of the original 100-dollar price.
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