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