Percentage Problem

melguy wrote:A reduction of 20% in the price of apples could enable a man to get 120 more for 1440 bucks. Find the first price of one apple.

One (potentially fast) approach would be to plug in the answer choices, but you have not supplied them.

Let A = original price per apple

We'll use two facts.
#1) Number of apples purchased = ($1440)/(apple price)
#2) After a 20% reduction, the new price is 0.8A

If A 20% price reduction enables a man to buy 120 extra apples, then we can write the following "word" equation:
(# of apples bought at reduced price) - (# of apples bought at original price) = 120
So, 1440/0.8A - 1440/A = 120
Get common denominator of 4A: (5)(1440)/4A - (4)(1440)/4A = 120
Simplify left side: 1440/4A = 120
Reduce left side: 360/A = 120
A = 3

Cheers,
Brent

melguy wrote: . . .thanks to the shortcut you have mentioned in your videos of finding the % quickly

If anyone is interest, the video melguy is referring to is a free video you can find here https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat- ... ic?id=1073. The part about finding percents quickly begins around 3:00

Cheers,
Brent