Percentage

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vishugogo: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 131; Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:50 amFollowed by: 6 members; Location: India; Thanked: 28 times

by vishugogo » Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:43 am

A grocer buys apples for 63Â¢ per pound. If 10% of the apples goes bad and he still wants to make a 20% profit over his purchase price, what should be the sales price?

A) 66Â¢
B) 70Â¢
C) 75Â¢
D) 77Â¢
E) 84Â¢

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Problem Solving | Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:43 am

vinay1983: Legendary Member; Posts: 643; Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:27 amFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 48 times

by vinay1983 » Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:32 am

Is it B

You can, for example never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to!

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rakeshd347: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 391; Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:13 amFollowed by: 4 members; Thanked: 50 times

by rakeshd347 » Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:49 am

vishugogo wrote:A grocer buys apples for 63Â¢ per pound. If 10% of the apples goes bad and he still wants to make a 20% profit over his purchase price, what should be the sales price?

A) 66Â¢
B) 70Â¢
C) 75Â¢
D) 77Â¢
E) 84Â¢

Answer should be E

Suppose he bought 10 pounds of apple at 63Â¢ per pound. So basically he spend 630Â¢ and he want to make 20% higher which is 630*1.2=756Â¢.
Now he only have 9 pounds and he wants to make 756Â¢ from 9 pounds. So price per pound should be 756/9=84Â¢

So the correct answer is E

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theCodeToGMAT: Legendary Member; Posts: 1556; Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:18 pmFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 448 times; GMAT Score:650

by theCodeToGMAT » Mon Oct 07, 2013 3:09 am

63 * 1.2 / 0.9 = 84

Answer [spoiler]{E}[/spoiler]

R A H U L

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vipulgoyal: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 468; Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:20 pmFollowed by: 4 members; Thanked: 29 times

by vipulgoyal » Mon Oct 07, 2013 3:10 am

10 % got spoiled

his net cost price 63*10/9 = 70
20% profit = 70+14=84

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Mon Oct 07, 2013 3:21 am

vishugogo wrote:A grocer buys apples for 63Â¢ per apple. If 10% of the apples go bad, and the grocer still wants to make a 20% profit over his purchase price, what should be the selling price per apple?

A) 66Â¢
B) 70Â¢
C) 75Â¢
D) 77Â¢
E) 84Â¢

Let the number of the apples purchased = 10.
Total cost = 10*63 = 630.
To make a profit of 20%, the required revenue = 630 + .2(630) = 756.
After 10% of the apples go bad, the number of remaining apples = 10 - .1(10) = 9.
Required selling price per apple = 756/9 = 84.

The correct answer is E.

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by [email protected] » Tue Oct 08, 2013 12:23 am

Hi vishugogo,

Each of the explanations in this string provides a valid approach for this PS question. I tend to side with Mitch's approach - TESTing values is perfect for this type of situation.

The answer themselves actually provide a "logic" shortcut that you can use to avoid most of the "math" involved.

Since apples cost 63 cents/pound, a 20% profit on ALL the apples would be:

63(1.2) = 75.6 cents/pound

This immediately eliminates A, B and C.

Since 10% of the apples "go bad", we can't sell them, so we need to "make up" for the lost 63 cents per "bad apple" AND the "missing profit" from not selling each bad apple. That would drive up the price considerably on the remaining apples that we CAN sell.

Between D and E, D is too close to 75.6 to be the answer. The only answer that makes sense would be E.

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