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Percentage

by vishugogo » Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:43 am
A grocer buys apples for 63¢ 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) 66¢
B) 70¢
C) 75¢
D) 77¢
E) 84¢
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by vinay1983 » Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:32 am
Is it B
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by rakeshd347 » Mon Oct 07, 2013 1:49 am
vishugogo wrote:A grocer buys apples for 63¢ 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) 66¢
B) 70¢
C) 75¢
D) 77¢
E) 84¢
Answer should be E

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

So the correct answer is E
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by theCodeToGMAT » Mon Oct 07, 2013 3:09 am
63 * 1.2 / 0.9 = 84

Answer [spoiler]{E}[/spoiler]
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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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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Oct 07, 2013 3:21 am
vishugogo wrote:A grocer buys apples for 63¢ 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) 66¢
B) 70¢
C) 75¢
D) 77¢
E) 84¢
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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