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The Official Guide for GMAT® Review, 13th Edition - Quantitative Questions Project

A clothing store acquired an item at a cost of x dollars and sold the item for y dollars. The store's gross profit from the item was what percent of its cost for the item?

(1) y - x = 20
(2) y/x = 5/4

Practice Questions
Question: 51
Page: 279
Difficulty: 600

GMAT Club is introducing a new project: The Official Guide for GMAT® Review, 13th Edition - Quantitative Questions Project

Each week we'll be posting several questions from The Official Guide for GMAT® Review, 13th Edition and then after couple of days we'll provide Official Answer (OA) to them along with a slution.

We'll be glad if you participate in development of this project:
1. Please provide your solutions to the questions;
2. Please vote for the best solutions by pressing Kudos button;
3. Please vote for the questions themselves by pressing Kudos button;
4. Please share your views on difficulty level of the questions, so that we have most precise evaluation.

Thank you!

The gross profit is \(y-x.\) The question asks for the ratio \(\frac{y-x}{x}.\)

(1) No information about \(x.\)
Not sufficient.

(2) Since \(\frac{y-x}{x}=\frac{y}{x}-\frac{x}{x}=\frac{y}{x}-1\), sufficient.

Answer B.
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SOLUTION

A clothing store acquired an item at a cost of x dollars and sold the item for y dollars. The store's gross profit from the item was what percent of its cost for the item?

We need to find the value of \(\frac{y-x}{x}*100=(\frac{y}{x}-\frac{x}{x})*100=(\frac{y}{x}-1)*100\). So, basically we need to find the value of \(\frac{y}{x}\).

(1) y - x = 20. We cannot get the desired ratio from this statement. Not sufficient.
(2) y/x = 5/4. Directly gives us the value of \(\frac{y}{x}\). Sufficient.

Answer: B.

Kudos points given to everyone with correct solution. Let me know if I missed someone.
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Your method to rephrase a stem is simply unbelievable. Of course the most important thing during the exam is to have the right solution under time constrain, no matter what......but wow :)
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A clothing store acquired an item at a cost of x dollars and sold the item for y dollars. The store's gross profit from the item was what percent of its cost for the item?

(1) y - x = 20
(2) y/x = 5/4

We are given that a clothing store acquired an item at a cost of x dollars and sold the item for y dollars. We must determine:

(profit/cost) * 100 = ?

We are given x as the cost and y as the revenue. Thus, profit = revenue – cost = y – x, and thus we can substitute y – x for profit and x for cost. Thus, our new question is:

(y – x)/x * 100 = ?

Statement One Alone:

y – x = 20

Since y – x = 20, we can substitute 20 for y - x into the expression (y – x)/x * 100.

The new question is: 20/x * 100 = ?

Since we do not know the value of x, statement one alone is not sufficient.

Statement Two Alone:

y/x = 5/4

When we cross multiply y/x = 5/4 we obtain:

4y = 5x

(4/5)y = x

0.8y = x

Since 0.8y = x, we can substitute 0.8y for x in the expression (y – x)/x * 100.

(y – 0.8y)/(0.8y) * 100 = ?

(0.2y)/(0.8y) * 100 = ?

(0.2/0.8) * 100 = ?

(1/4) * 100 = 25%

Statement two is sufficient.

Answer: B
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A clothing store acquired an item at a cost of x dollars and sold the item for y dollars. The store's gross profit from the item was what percent of its cost for the item?

(1) y - x = 20
(2) y/x = 5/4

Practice Questions
Question: 51
Page: 279
Difficulty: 600

Profit percent = (profit / CP )*100% = (y-x)/x *100% = (y/x -1 )*100%

(1) Insufficient
(2) Sufficient

B is correct.
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A clothing store acquired an item at a cost of x dollars and sold the item for y dollars. The store's gross profit from the item was what percent of its cost for the item?

By clearly seeing the logic of what's going on in this question, we can answer it in under a minute without doing any formal math or writing anything.

The key aspect of the scenario to understand is that the percentage of the cost represented by the gross profit is basically a ratio of gross profit to cost. So, to answer the question, we need either some kind of information in ratio form that indicates what the ratio of gross profit to cost is or exact numbers that we can use to calculate the ratio between gross profit and cost.

(1) y - x = 20

This statement does not indicate what any kind of ratio involved in the scenario is.

Also, the single value provided of does not enable calculation of any ratio since, to calculate a ratio, we need two sides.

Insufficient.

(2) y/x = 5/4

This statement is interesting.

While it doesn't directly provide the ratio of gross profit to cost, by providing the ratio of price to cost, it provides information sufficient for determining the ratio of gross profit to cost.

After all, the ratio of gross profit to cost must be mathematically locked in by the ratio of price to cost since gross profit = price - cost. In other words, if we how the relative sizes of the price and the cost, we can use that information to determine the relative sizes of price - cost and cost, which we could then use to determine what percent of the cost is gross profit.

Sufficient.

Correct answer: B
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