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Last year's receipts from the sale of candy on Valentine's

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Last year's receipts from the sale of candy on Valentine's

by BTGmoderatorLU » Wed Sep 19, 2018 3:30 pm

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Last year's receipts from the sale of candy on Valentine's Day totaled 385 million dollars, which represented 7 percent of total candy sales for the year. Candy sales for the year totaled how many million dollars?

A. 55
B. 550
C. 2,695
D. 5,500
E. 26,950

The OA is D.
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Wed Sep 19, 2018 4:36 pm
BTGmoderatorLU wrote:Last year's receipts from the sale of candy on Valentine's Day totaled 385 million dollars, which represented 7 percent of total candy sales for the year. Candy sales for the year totaled how many million dollars?

A. 55
B. 550
C. 2,695
D. 5,500
E. 26,950

The OA is D.
GIVEN: 385 million dollars represents 7% of TOTAL candy sales
In other words: 7% of TOTAL candy sales = 385 million dollars
Rewrite as: (7/100)(TOTAL candy sales) = 385 million
To multiply both sides by 100/7 to get: TOTAL candy sales = (100/7)(385 million)

ASIDE: We need not perform any complex calculations here.
Notice that the answer choices are VERY spread apart. This means we can be quite AGGRESSIVE with our estimation.
100/7 ≈ 14 and 385 million is close to 400 million
In fact, let's round 100/7 all the way up to 15

We get: TOTAL candy sales ≈ (15)(400 million)
≈6,000 million dollars

Check the answer choices.....only one answer choice is close to 6,000

Answer: D

Cheers,
Brent
Brent Hanneson - Creator of GMATPrepNow.com
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