Bunuel wrote:
manalq8 wrote:
If the circus were to sell all of its 220 tickets for this month's performance at its usual price, the revenue from sales would be 10% greater than that collected last month. If the circus raised the ticket price by 5% and sold only 200 tickets as a result, what percent less would last month's revenue be compared to this month's revenue?
A. 2
B. 5
C. 100/21
D. 110/20
E. 9/4
For a percentage questions like this one, it's almost always better to plug some smart numbers.
Let the usual price of a ticket be $20 (I chose $20 because $20+5%=$21=integer, which will make calculations easier). This month's revenue for this price would be 220*$20=$4,400 and we are told that it's 10% greater than the revenue collected last month, hence
the last month's revenue was $4,400/1.1=$4,000;
Circus raised the ticket price by 5%, so the new price was $21 and
the actual revenue from 200 tickets was 200*$21=$4,200;
What percent less would
last month's revenue be
compared to this month's revenue: \(percent=\frac{4,200-4,000}{4,200}*100=\frac{100}{21}%\). General formula for percent increase or decrease, (percent change): \(percent=\frac{Change}{Original}*100\), so as we are comparing the difference to this month's revenue we should put this value ($4,200) in the denominator.
Answer: C.
Thank you for your comment.
I don't quite agree with the % change formula.
Common formula for % change is
Change % = (Current month less Last Month)/Last Month *100% (this approach is consistent with 13th OE, please refer to question 177 problem solving).
But even if you would like to use current month as a reference value then the formula should be
Change % = (Last month less Current Month)/Current Month *100
You always deduct and divide by the same amount (i.e. reference value)
Common approach is to use prior month as a reference value.
Thus the correct answer should be either negative (if current month is used as a reference value) or recalculated using last month as a reference value