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

Hi All,

We're told that last year's receipts from the sale of candy on Valentine's Day totaled 385 million dollars and those receipts represented 7% of total candy sales for the year. We're asked for the total dollar amount of candy sold, in millions of dollars, for the year. This question can be solved in a number of different ways; since the Answer choices are so 'spread out', we can use some estimation and basic Arithmetic to get the answer.

To start, 7/100 is approximately 1/14, so 385 is approximately 1/14 of the total. Instead of multiplying (385)(14), you should recognize that (385)(10) = 3850, so (385)(14) will be bigger (but not that much bigger) than 3850. There's only one answer that 'fits.'

Final Answer: D

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

AAPL wrote:Last year's receipts from the sale of candy on Valentine's Day totaled 385 million dollars, which represented 7 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

Letting n = the total candy sales for the year, we can create a proportion:

7/385 = 100/n

7n = 385 x 100

n = 55 x 100 = 5500

Alternate Solution:

Letting n = the total candy sales for the year, we can create the following equation:

0.07n = 385

7n = 38500

n = 5500 million

Answer: D