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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

The question actually asked for the profit percent, did he forget to put that?

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He said it right. Just humor me, so we can THINK this through.

$5 profit

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

$5 profit

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Good. And we want to base the profit percent on what he sold it for. How much $ was that?

It sold for $16

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

it sold for $16

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Good girl!

Now, do you see a relationship between $5 and $16? 5 and 16? Think times tables. This will help us estimate the answer.

5 can go into 16 3 times... is that what you mean?

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

5 can go into 16 3 times.....is that what you mean?

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Yes, now remember you said that. It's correct.

Now we have to figure out percent. We take the profit ($5) and make a ratio (put it over the selling price). What is the selling price? What fraction (or ratio, same thing) do you end up with?

5/16?

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

5/16?

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Yes! Now solve that. 5 divided by 16.

.31

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

.31

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There should be more behind the decimal.

16 into 5.0000 = .31xx

Sorry - I had said that wrong.

.3125

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

.3125

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Good!

And by the way, 11/16 = .6875

.3125 + .6875 = 1.0000 = 100%

SOOOO, we move the decimal point two places to the right to make it a percent.

.31 = xx%

OR to be perfectly accurate

.3125 = xx.xx%

Lol thank you!

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

Lol thank you!!

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And you were going to remember that 5 is about a third of 16. So 5/16 = 31% or about a third of 100%.

The final answer is really 31.25% profit percentage.

I think I need some Kahlua. On chipped ice.

Oh OK, I get it now... Now that I finally understand it, I can go to bed and hopefully wake up without this raging headache!

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Originally Posted by Romefalls19

Oh ok, I get it now...Now that I finally understand it, I can go to bed and hopefully wake up without this raging headache!

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Does it make sense? I want my "students" to know how it all fits together, not just an answer.

WHY are you taking this course?

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Originally Posted by Wondergirl

15% of x (x = total price) = $318.75 (discount price)

15/100 (another way of saying 15%) of x = $318.75

100/15 times 15/100 of x = $318.74 times 100/15

I did the above to cancel out to 1/1.

What you put on one side of an equation, you have to also put on the other side.

x = $318.75 times 100/15

x = ?

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This doesn't work. 15% of x, that is, 15% of the original price is the discount. $318.75 doesn't equal the discount. It's the marked down price. Also, the answer to 318.75 x (100/15) is indeed 2125, not 21.25. It doesn't make sense because it isn't done correctly. That's what the original price would have been if 318.75 had been the discount inself.

If you're going to solve it in this manner, it would be x - (.15x) = 318.75. But in a minute I'm going to show another way to do this that doesn't involve solving algebra, but essentially comes down to the same math.