percentages

Question

James a sales rep at a computer retail outlet, receives a commission of 3% for every computer and 5% for every monitor he sells, the selling price of computer is $800, and for monitor for $250, if he sold 180 computers and 120 monitors. what is his sales commission

Answer 1

Kayla,

 

Percent means "per hundredth" (think of 100 cents in a dollar).  So, 3% means 3 cents commission for each dollar of sales for computers and 5% means 5 ce3nts for each dollar of sales for monitors.  Three percent can be written as 3/100 or 0.03 (and how is 5% written?).  In word problems, the word "of" usually means multiply.  Also, realize that:

           dollars  = (dollars per item)*(number of items)          [items cancel out leaving dollars]

 

So, James gets a commission of:

   Commission = (0.03)*[($800/computer)*(180 computers)]  +  (0.05)*[($250/monitor)*(120 monitors)]

   Commission = $4320  +  $1500

   Commission = $5,820

 

Answer 2

Hi Kayla,

 

If James is receiving a commission of 3% for each computer priced at $800, the commission is $24 per computer sold.  Likewise, if James is receiving a commission of 5% for each monitor priced at $250, the commission is $12.5 per monitor sold.  The calculations for each follows:

 

Commission = percentage times price 

 

For computer, commission = .03 times 800 = 24

For monitor, commission = .05 times 250 = 12.5

 

Therefore, if James sells 180 computers, at a commission of $24 each, his total commission from computers is 180 times 24 = $4320.

 

If James sells 120 monitors, at a commission of $12.50 each, his total commission from monitors is 120 times 12.50 = $1500.

 

For your last step, finding the total commission, simply add up the computer commission and monitor commission to get $4320 + $1500 = $5820.

 

James's total commission is $5820.

 

Does this make sense?

 

RoseMarie D.