PSAT Math : Monetary Percentage

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for PSAT Math

varsity tutors app store varsity tutors android store

Example Questions

1 2 3 5 Next →

Example Question #1 : Interest

Ted works over the summer and makes $9 per hour.  He works for 20 hours each week for 10 weeks.  After paying 10% in taxes, he buys a bike for $500 and puts the rest of his money in the bank.

If Ted's bank pays 5% interest on the total sum once per year, and Ted doesn't add or remove anything from the account, how much money (rounded to the nearest cent) will Ted have in 5 years?

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

To start, we see that Ted works for 20 hours per week for 10 weeks.  This means he works a total of 200 hours over the summer.  He is paid $9 dollars each hour.  Therefore he makes $9 x 200 hours = $1800 total over the summer.  He then has to pay 10% in taxes, or .1 x $1800, leaving him with .  He buys the bike for $500, so he has $1620 - $500 = $1,120 to deposit at the bank.

Now we have to find out how much he will have 5 years later.  Since the bank pays 5% interest each year, we know that he will make 5% of what he has each year.  He starts with $1,120.  5% of this value is .  Adding this to the original $1,120 gives us $1,176.

This is also the same as multiplying instead by 1.05.  We repeat this step 5 times, giving us:

Example Question #1 : How To Find Simple Interest

Jane borrows  dollars from the bank.  Her loan has an annual interest rate of  percent. How much interest will she owe after  years? (Use a simple interest calculation)

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

Use the simple interest formula:

Interest equals the initial amount multiplied by the annual interest rate multiplied by the number of years:

Let = interest owed

Let = principal (aka the initial amount of the loan)

Let  = interest rate

Let  = years passed

Therefore:

1 2 3 5 Next →
Learning Tools by Varsity Tutors